Eternally Vernal
by cge0361
Summary: A lonesome hunter, this deerling befitted: spring form repeated and autumn omitted. Human reluctant, deerling without tact, each gave the other what the other one lacked. Learning together, staying true to their ways, fate drew them closer for a number of days. Forced into a choice, threatened by prophesy, the man must decide what their futures shall be.
1. Accept Superior Substitutes

Eternally Vernal, Chapter 1: Accept Superior Substitutes.

* * *

Anthony Gates flexed his finger idly as he stared across his rifle's sights. His quarry stood frozen within foliage, idly flexing nothing. Although nature camouflaged the monster well, whenever a wisp of wind passed by, a couple of twigs and the faux pink flowers decorating them failed to sway with their cover. Anthony flexed his finger; straight and then slightly curled again. Every other joint in his body had stiffened from his holding still for so long. No matter: only that finger needed to move. Minutes passed as slowly as hours, his quarry standing motionless. A bug of some unseen sort gnawed into Anthony's flesh, just above his right sock's elastic. His mind drifted to thoughts of buying new socks and those thoughts were not eager ones. Prompted by nothing, the two twigs rose up with the sawsbuck to which they were attached. When they moved forward one meter, Gates' finger flexed again, curling additionally this time. The sawsbuck collapsed and an announcement of his death rang throughout Allylidene Forest. The nearest ranger's station was never as far away as it should be in an ideal world, but even Anthony's nemesis could legally do little more than interrupt during the undertaking. Gates swung his gear over his back and began trudging through the forest's foliage. His first steps came awkwardly and extracted from him a groan. Arriving upon his kill and examining the sight, Gates smirked with self-satisfaction. His shot landed perfectly; clean and instantly lethal. He took a photograph to admire later and got straight to work: hungry predators other than himself lurked throughout this part of the forest.

He was better than halfway through the dressing process when his nemesis arrived. "You're in my sights, so don't try to run this time!" Francois warned, neglecting to specify if his weapon was loaded with ten milliliters or ten millimeters.

Gates worked on, merely commenting, "I hate to disappoint you, but I've got a permit this time. Check my pocket if you want to see it. My hands are busy."

Francois approached, holstering his pistol to examine Gates' paperwork. With a shake of his head and a huff, he began again, "You know they're worth more alive than dead. People paid good money to import them in the first place."

"Tell it to my taste buds, Franny."

"I'd like to tell it to your jaw with my fists."

Gates scoffed as he propped open the buck's body cavity. "What an attitude. Did the little ice princess give you a hard time this morning, or do you need to take a pill to have a hard time these days?" Francois balled a fist and cocked his head, mumbling indistinctly something understood nonetheless. Gates asked, "What was that?" with a contentious inflection. Turning to face Francois, he threw his knife aside—lodging it into the bark of a nearby tree—and took up a boxer's stance. "Come on, say it like you mean it; off the record."

What an invitation this was. Francois took a deep, frustrated breath. "My supervisor's supposed to visit for regular inspection soon."

Keeping his pose, Gates taunted the ranger. "Ohhh, you would like to be a man but you don't want to show him a bruised-up gourd and not have a good excuse for it? Tell him you wrestled with a bear."

"I have regulations and responsibilities to consider!—things a wash-out like you couldn't begin to understand. Now, do you want to swing first and give me my good excuse?"

Gates jerked his head up sharply to indicate a direction in the distance. "Not now that we've got a witness." A glaceon perched upon a felled tree's fragmented stump positioned herself centrally and sat upon it. She wore an ornate vest and a concerned expression.

Francois glanced to his left side briefly. "Then I guess we're done here, for now. Next time, though…" He shook an extended finger in a disciplinarian fashion.

Gates recovered his knife. "Next time, do a better job of distracting your superior so we can have it out proper. I'm tired of not hitting you when you have it coming."

With a flippant gesture, the ranger indicated to his superior that this incident was authorized. With a rude gesture, the ranger bid goodbye to his nemesis.

Anthony did not notice. He was already adjusting his trainer's device's radio to find something that fit his mood while he prepared to haul his kill. Over the hiss of static interference he heard a twig snap, and then another noise in response to the sound that the twig snapper unexpectingly made. Glimpsing what looked like a fluffy flower skimming the edge of visibility behind a bush, "It was a male," Gates whined, "you've gotta be kidding me." A deerling emerged and investigated the buck's corpse as it dangled, making a few inquisitive sounds. Then, more, asking why its questions went unanswered. It reared up and head-butted two suspended rear hooves, anticipating some sort of a kick in response. Along with the rest of their body, those hooves simply turned away a little. Gates weighed his options against his honor and released the one of his houndooms that he carried along this day. The dog appeared with a flash that startled the deerling, which hopped and dashed behind the dead sawsbuck as though it still offered protection. Anthony gave his dog the order that it awaited: "Seth, gently let it know that it needs to fend for itself now."

Seth slowly padded up to the deerling, nudging hanging hooves aside. The deerling stepped back as the dog imposed its presence. When the gap between them closed, the houndoom pushed the deerling away using a thrust of his muzzle. The deerling tumbled but immediately recovered its stance, grunted happily, and leapt against the side of Seth's face to return his shove. Although Seth's balance endured, he hopped backward and looked to Anthony with a perplexed whine.

"Alright, it needs to get the message. Seth, use fire… no, use f-uuuu-raugh. Forget it. That'd probably just make it die." Gates stomped over to stand beside his pokemon, reached down, and picked up the deerling. It did not seem to mind being handled. "Your pappy's dead. Got that?" The deerling made a sound and stared into Anthony's eyes till it could no longer, that moment being when the man carelessly wedged it beneath his left arm, freeing his right to help press obstructions away. Together they traveled northward. Stepping across stones and splashing through some less accommodating spans, Anthony placed the deerling on the far side of a creek. "Now, shoo!" The deerling bleated back. Anthony swung his arms outward toward the deerling in a threatening manner. The deerling reared up and kicked at the air between them. Gates turned around and worked his way back across the creek. The deerling watched intently where he stepped to rejoin his waiting houndoom and to disappear into the woods.

* * *

"Don't look at me like that." Francois noticed Freja, as a reflection in a glass trophy of recognition on his table, staring at him. "You know he deserves to be locked up." That reflection's eyes narrowed. "Why don't you go join him or something? I'm sure his houndooms would make you feel right at home."

Her reflection turned away from him. Francois returned to his paperwork. Carefully rotating the task chair upon which she sat to face her own terminal, Freja pawed at a touch screen and examined a weather update, a security camera feed at a nearby public recreation site, and some electronic mail. She glanced at Francois again and wished that she could put him on a different career path.

* * *

Gates dragged his quarry back to his vehicle by its antlers and secured it. His mouth watered a little in pavlovian fashion as he thought of what he could make of the meat. He hopped into the driver's seat and expected to turn his key three times before this old heap would turn over. After his second attempt, a clattering noise bade him to turn. A deerling stood upon a wrapped kill, sniffing at it with great interest. Anthony got out and walked to the rear of his vehicle. Picking up the deerling again, he turned it around and as it rotated it exploited an opportunity to lick the man's face. He sputtered and, addressing a deity, cursed loudly. "You know I could twist your neck and throw you in the same hole where I buried your pappy's entrails and nobody'd be the wiser, right?" The creature's attention piqued two-thirds through his sentence; Gates realized that it just figured out the meaning of "pappy," as it responded to the word by looking at the body, then back at Gates. Then, it tried to lick him again and grunted almost a giggle when Anthony barely dodged its tongue.

Again he carried it off into the woods. This time he sought distraction rather than obstruction. Noticing two small berry patches, he approached the first and encouraged the deerling to eat of the three ripened berries that it offered, giving one to the pokemon and taking one for himself. When it finished, he snapped away the third, tantalizingly waved it, and threw it in the direction of the more-distant berry bush. "There, go gorge yourself." The deerling dashed after the thrown berry and the poacher made his retreat, quietly but hastily.

After seven turns of his ignition key, Gates felt as though he were trapped in a monster movie. He glanced into a mirror every time his vehicle sputtered and quit. Always, he saw nothing in the glass but trees and the navigable trail. With the eighth try, it at least ran for a moment, but died before rolling more than a few meters. He glanced again. A terror appeared in the glass, and it had surely heard the engine. With nine turns, his machine roared to life and rolled away, but deerlings in mirrors are closer than they appear. It, and the berry bush branch that it carried in its mouth, vanished beyond the mirror's inside edge. Anthony twisted to look behind himself; surely, it couldn't outrun a—

Gates faced forward when he felt the bump, but the road's course had already escaped his vehicle's trajectory. Away from the trail and into the woods it bounded. Bushes gave way till a mighty tree, unshaken for nearly a century, experienced a strange momentary vibration. One branch, weakened by decay that followed an insect infestation, dropped from its trunk and ensured that the windscreen did not escape intact. Today was now in the running for the most exciting day of that tree's life.

When Gates regained consciousness, it was to a smelling salt improvised from a wild berry: bitten in half, smashed, and now being pressed against and somewhat into his mouth. And also, somewhat up his nose. The berry paste was bitter and unpleasant. So was Gates once he gathered his thoughts. With a busted radiator, his ride was not fit for far. Anthony shoved a deerling beneath his left arm; took up his rifle, an equipment bag, and one cooler with his right; and began walking a trail that led to humility.

* * *

Francois had fallen asleep in his—the bottom—bunk. Cued by his first snore, Freja borrowed his identification card so her terminal would permit access to different kinds of information. She nearly leapt out of her skin when a heavy fist banged on the door of her ranger outpost office. Dashing to the back room, she coughed a ball of frost at Francois as much to buy her a moment to cover her tracks as to awaken him for the sake of their needy public.

After planting the seed of a future argument with Freja, Francois opened the door for a disheveled mess that resembled Anthony. "What are you—you look like hell."

"Take this." Gates let his cooler drop to the floor. Both hands now free, he gripped the deerling and shoved it in Francois's face. It licked him, but immediately sputtered and fussed.

"We work to manage the wildlife, but we do not tend to it. If you caught this pokemon, it's your responsibility. You of all people should—"

"Shut up, you skinny prick, and take it. I didn't catch it; it just won't leave me alone!"

Freja interceded and spoke with the deerling for a short time. After a few exchanges, she mounted her chair, activated her own terminal, typed out a message using translatable ideographs, and leaned aside to reveal her display. Francois read the symbols aloud, "Speak Grass-pokemon: battle, exchange, Man—uh, that one's 'teacher' but with something added to it—both are repeated. That might be emphasis, but, I'm not good with symbols."

"Battle and exchange?" Gates tucked the deerling beneath his left arm again so he could emphatically point at it with his right. "You mean this pest thinks I shot that buck so I could be its new pappy?" By raising her right paw and shaking it upward and downward while bobbing her head gently, Freja affirmed. Gates grunted and placed the deerling on the floor. It immediately dashed about the room, disappeared around a corner into another room, and wrecked something. "My head hurts from the crash," Anthony continued to Freja, neglecting Francois's complaints about whatever broke, "Wanna be my ice pack?" With her assent, he adjusted the lower bunk's pillow and crawled upon the cot, and she joined him at the head of the bed, resting her chin upon Gates' well-formed bruises.

Desperate to find foundation for his argument, Francois reminded his superior officer of policy matters regarding security of the non-public side of the building. Freja snarled at him sharply and indicated toward a poster on their wall. It bore the logo of the rangers' service, a stock photograph of smiling agents and their pokemon, and a legend: "In the safety and pleasure of our parks' explorers and denizens, we find our first duty." Accepting his defeat, Francois left to survey the damage as a deerling with a garbage can stuck over its head trotted back into the back room after colliding with the door frame and before colliding with a table.

* * *

At sunrise, Anthony let Francois throw him out so his nemesis would have a good moment with which to begin the day. The deerling followed along as Gates returned to the site of his unscheduled detour. Nothing remained of the buck and only fragments of the abandoned coolers could be found. Judging by the claw marks and tracks, he figured that an ursaring got to it; perhaps two. If only he had the appropriate paperwork. He rescued a few surviving non-essentials and documentation from the glove compartment, and attached a transponder so the wreck could be easily located and hauled away in the near future. Signing it over to the park to be sold as scrap would help cover a little of the towing cost, at least; the old heap was worth more dead than alive. Looking about himself, for a moment he thought that the deerling had gone home, but as he left the crash site it leapt from the denser bushes with a berry-laden branch in its mouth. That was just as well. Francois had won his argument against turning their office into the second half of a bed and breakfast, and these berries were not quite as noxious as other varieties in this part of the forest. Holding the branch carelessly so that it hanged to his side and a little behind himself, the deerling stayed near and nipped off a bite every ten meters or so.

When Gates passed by the ranger station again, Madame Wintergreen proved absent, surely on her morning constitutional. Thus, Monsieur Lacroix had free reign over the facility and free rein over the paperwork. "And you failed to recover all remnants of the coolers?"

Gates huffed, not needing to watch the tip of Francois's stylus to know where it was going. "I told you, it looked like 'rings got into it. The missing bits won't be seen again until your next scat survey." If you are going to pay, get your money's worth, right?

"Littering: Mechanisms requiring recovery, one, large, salvageable. Garbage: Non-biodegradable, 'many.' Miscellaneous ranger services provided:" Francois gave Anthony a smirking glance, "Many, in excess of policy; demanding unique accommodation and disrupting work-flow. Alright, put that drawing of a hairy shower drain clog you call your signature at the bottom and remove yourself from my forest." Francois presented the form slate and stylus just barely within reach. The poacher adjusted his underarm deerling a little for balance while reaching across to sign. The ranger flipped the slate again and sent its form to headquarters. A small receipt card emerged from a nearby printer for the sake of Gates' records, which Francois offered with a barb, "Not as hairy as it used to be. Then again, neither is your scalp." Francois lifted his cap and ran his fingers through his own hair as a thrust.

Gates parried. "None of my pokemon have had to learn to use tweezers to pick an embedded tick off of my head." In a way, it was also a question. Gates always wondered if, and then, how, Freja got it off of him.

Francois was already halfway to the washroom to inspect his coiffure. "Clearly it is logistically impossible to fully control, but you know that it's a misdemeanor to take pokemon from the regulated zone of Allylidene without capturing them into registered balls. What do you intend to do with that deerling that you seem to enjoy carrying about as though your woman ordered you to hold her bag while she shops?"

"I don't in-tend a damn thing. I'm going to put it down and walk to town and if it follows me then it came on its own and you can't do a damn thing about that."

Francois returned. "Alas, I would revel in an opportunity to press a charge against you." He leaned over the counter and got a deerling's attention by scratching it beneath its jaw with an extended digit. "Remember, little buck, we rangers take care of your home, and this man shot your sire. You know whose side to be on, no?"

The deerling grunted and sneezed at Francois's face.

* * *

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

It was not a clock, for it never went tock; once missing a beat, as to side-step a rock.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Counting far too fast, nearly four a second; to his new timer, soon Anthony beckoned.

Tick-tick. Tick-tick. Tick-tick. Tick-tick.

Its rhythm of steps became syncopated. Joyous expressions were not understated.

Pip-pop. Clip-clop. Pip-pop. Clip-clop.

Trying its damnedest to gain greater vantage, it kicked Gates' knee cap and did minor damage.

"Ow!" Tony shouted; then he sat on the ground, questioning motives of this deerling he found.

Cradling his knee by the side of the road, Gates envied drivers for their wheel-enhanced mode.

The man showed his thumb, to implore for a ride. A motorist slowed with a comment quite snide.

"Expert deer hunter limping home with no rack? Hunger's impatient, but that's hardly a snack!"

Removing his boots as to bring in no muck, Gates then clambered up in Velasquez's truck.

Despite one last try to convince it to shoo, the deerling jumped in as to ride along, too.

Settled in the seat, the wild deerling played tame; some ten miles passed; Carlos asked for its name.

"He stays right by me, like the guards in a jail: I'll call him 'Warden,' at least till I make bail."

* * *

Nybomy Pokecenter's automatic doors glided open with a hiss. Gates crossed its narrow entryway in only a few paces. He heard another hiss, but the doors were already shut behind him. The lobby proved to be empty and there seemed to be nobody attending the counter. He picked up Warden and perched him upon it. Scanning around, he saw no obvious cause for the sound, yet it persisted. Setting aside his curiosity he called out into the void, "If I leave this here, you guys'll take it away where it'll never find me again, right?"

An arbok wearing a taped-on pokecenter attendant's hat rose from beneath the counter. The hiss came with it for a moment. "If you leave that here…" She flicked her tongue around wildly to sample the deerling's flavor.

"You'll be in your cage again," said a nurse without a name tag as she emerged from the medical wing's hallway. "Never mind Arbok. She's forever in training." Said snake slithered aside and back beneath the counter. "You were saying you want to dump that pokemon here?" asked the nurse.

Gates raised his voice. "I want it to leave me alone."

"So, you caught it because it was pestering you?"

"I didn't catch it. I was in the forest, and," Gates' tone lowered to inflect a combination of anger and despair, "it follows me." The venom building in Anthony's voice got the arbok's attention.

"Well, then buy and register a ball, capture it properly, and take it home. You can't trap Allylidene Forest pokemon just to release them again here at the southern border of the woods. If we—"

Warden went for a walk along the counter.

"Yes, yes, I know the policy and the rules and one of the rangers far too well. Look, I don't want to take care of a game animal and it's not like it'll learn how to be a proper sawsbuck being raised by somebody who tags 'em and bags 'em."

The arbok's tongue flicked into view, preceding its rising head. "Please? I want to be a good girl and help a human."

Alice pinched the tongue when it flicked out again. "No. You're still under restrictions for last week's incident. You've got two more days of dry kibble. Then we can talk about meat."

Arbok slithered into the break room, grumbling, "I'd rather talk to Flareon about meat."

Returning to Anthony, the nurse continued. "Take it back into the forest proper and chase it off if you want it gone. If you put it in a ball, it's yours. You'll be liable for improper release if you trap it and then disobey the Allylidene wildlife protocol."

"I'll be liable to put my boot up a certain ranger's ass is what." Gates left. Warden pursued him.

* * *

Seth decided to do it the gentle way. He bit into the fur on the back of Warden's neck and dragged him and his vocal protests off into the woods until Master was out of sight. Then, he coughed up some flames as a warning and told the deerling to leave. It stepped away slowly, made an unfamiliar gesture, and stepped away quickly. Seth hummed with self-amusement; that was easy enough. He expected it would at least try to get past him, since it seemed so doggedly stubborn about—

Jump-kicking Seth in the right side of his muzzle before he noticed any motion nearby, Warden dodged the dog's reflexive flare-up and came around behind him, delivering a pair of strikes just behind his rib cage. "I challenge!" Warden announced with as deep a voice as his tiny frame could muster.

Seth did not acknowledge because who would be Gates' lead was Gates' decision, not either of theirs. However, he did not appreciate this fawn's bravado, and came upon him as though it were a battle for respect. Hearing their commotion behind a row of bushes, Gates sighed and unwrapped a cheese stick taken from his pocket. He knew when he left home that he should have brought Cyrus along for this trip.

* * *

A musical chime awakened the hound guarding Gates' flat. Cyrus stood and stretched with a yawn, calmly and leisurely trotting into the kitchen where an automated machine with a musical penchant unsealed and upended a tin of gourmet meat factory seconds. It landed in a plastic bowl with a dull slap and retained half of its cylindrical shape until Cyrus devoured it. Licking his chops, he nudged a button that dispensed water to sate his thirst and his desire to obliterate a gourmet aftertaste. Then, having wiped dry his muzzle against a hand towel wrapped around a soft sponge, he began his patrol. An envelope had been slipped beneath the door. Cyrus picked it up carefully and gently with his mouth to lay it upon a small table nearby. He did not pay any mind to a paper crane also on the floor except to recognize upon it a trace of cologne—nasty, expensive stuff it was. Checking the windows, none showed signs of being forced, and he detected no stray scents of any invaders, anyway. Mostly it was a chance to see what was happening across the street. He saw what he sought, and wished that he were happening across the street, too. Finally, he hopped onto the couch, turned on the television, and slung himself against a pillow. Guard duty sucked; at least television didn't.

* * *

"Back so soon?" Arbok wiggled her ribs to make her warning pattern ripple attractively. Gates shook his head and placed a pokeball on the counter. Arbok picked it up in her mouth and asked, "Gi' iou ge' ge giyyaa?" She dropped the first ball into a hopper and flicked a touchscreen button with her tongue. "I've been daydreaming about that deerling thrashing about—right here," she indicated a spot with the tip of her tail, "ever since you left."

"No. Sadly, I couldn't leave it like it was." Gates placed a shiny new ball on the counter.

Arbok folded her ribs downward a bit. "My dreams never come true." After a moment, she exchanged the balls, and a minute later, returned both. "Nybomy Fields Pokemon Center thanks you for your patronage."

"You gotta say it like you mean it."

"I gotta get a better job."

"I've never heard a pokemon complain about Pokecenter work."

"You've never worked for her," Arbok whispered while rolling her eyes and gesturing toward the break room.

"I could make you an offer, but I don't train talkers."

With a hasty, "Never a single word, I'll promise," Arbok slithered away to surrender the primary terminal to Nurse Alice, just now having emerged from the break room. Arbok muttered something to herself in her own forked tongue as Anthony walked away from the counter and into a trap.

Entering the pokecenter's teleportation room, he swiped his trainer's card through a slot, pressed a button, and took a seat. Before he had time to sift through a pile of old magazines for anything distracting, a flash within three silver pillars snatched up his attention. With a grumble, he stood and tried to leave before—

Another flash put before him a kadabra, and the kadabra put before the doorway a barrier made of psychic energy. "Slow down, Friend!" he heard in his mind, "Let me show you my vision. It changed and I think it's important."

"I'm not interested in your perverse fantasies, Kit." He stepped around her but struggled ineffectually to pass through the barrier.

"It's not a perverse fantasy," she asserted, "and trust me, I had to get used to the idea, myself. You don't even have whiskers. But, I know what I saw, and—" she took his hand.

He took it right back. "Then find a xatu, smoke 'em peace pipe, and trip your way to a different vision. I'm not training a Psychic-type, and I'm not doing whatever other verbs you've got involved with me in your head. And, drop this barrier."

"I wish you wouldn't be like this. Every time, the next vision I get is a little darker than what little I remember of the last one. I want to help both of us. I don't think it's too—"

"Kit!"

"At least let me take you where you need to go. I'm sorry that my visions make it hard to be professional, but you paid to be teleported."

"Keep the fare. I'm not giving you a second chance to feel me up. Drop the barrier; I'll catch a wagon."

Kit exhaled deeply. "Thank you for choosing TeleTaxi for your transportation needs, proudly serving Ocimene for over forty years." She waved her left hand and as the barrier flickered away, Gates exited, halting only to turn for a moment and order, "And, stop having visions of my future."

Hearing the sliding doors' hiss, she collapsed into the chair in which he had sat, and complained aloud, "I wish that I could, you grouchy…" Distracted by a vision, one of the better ones, fading into darkness, Kit forgot what she was going to call Gates as she squeezed her eyelids shut—to no avail. It was gone; completely. Kit stood and rubbed her forehead with a spoon. It was weird, feeling like you had just awakened after thinking about literally nothing, somehow. She soon realized what had happened to her and wondered which possible future just died as she left the teleportation alcove and sought a vending machine, hoping that if it had anything to do with that human, Anthony, whom she kept seeing in her visions, it was a bad possible future that was now averted. Kit's curse was an imagination unwaveringly wishful.

Outside, the sun set over Anthony Gates and Nybomy Fields as the former searched the latter for a bus stop. Finding one, he bought a ride to Guaiacol.

* * *

Warden stared down Warden.

Warden stared right back.

The bus driver picked up his public address microphone and announced, "Will the passenger who owns this deerling kindly recall it; again."

Having backed up eight rows, Warden cast an effect upon himself and charged down the aisle. The other Warden hunkered down a bit, tensed his body, and when Warden came within one pace of the yellow warning line, sprang forward, colliding head-to-head with the unruly creature. Warden's body collapsed like a rag doll, nearly crossing but still behind the line. The other Warden carried most of Warden's momentum and splattered against the bus's broad front glass.

Gates awoke from his exhausted slumber with two taps on his shoulder to see the bus driver stomping down the aisle. "Hey, Mistah!" spoke a voice just behind himself, "You're gonna get in trouble, now."

"Sir, you seem to have forgotten to lock your pokemon's ball," admonished the driver, through his teeth.

Leaning over to glance down the aisle between the driver and the seating, "Is it dead?" Gates asked.

"No, but if it doesn't stop treating my bus like an Isshu subway car," the driver leaned in close, "or if I ever run into you in a dark alley, your deerling might ask that about you." He stood up straight and continued, "Recall your pokemon and lock its ball, or you will limp on foot to your destination."

Anthony rose from his seat and felt an urge to give the driver an invitation to join him on the nearby trainer's route, but then he noticed the bottom edge of a tattoo that the driver's uniform otherwise covered. He recalled Warden, and satisfied the driver by making a small presentation of his locking the deerling's ball. With both the driver and the passenger returned to his respective seat and the bus having returned to motion, the next-seat-back spoke again.

"You got lucky, Mistah. When he throws somebody off the bus, he actually throws 'em." Gates' audience ignored his intentional ignorance. "Hey, I'm not sayin' nothin', but you don't seem like the pink flower antler type. You came up here to catch a deerling, or is there somethin' else goin' on?"

Gates grunted. "I came up here to bag a sawsbuck. This deerling's a temporary inconvenience."

"Ah, so you're one of those guys who gotta kill to feel like ya' earned yer trophy."

"I eat what I kill. Any trophy value is secondary."

The bus hit a bump. "Hmmm, so you're gonna farm up the little one and save it for a special occasion?"

"I paid for a ride, Stranger, not for an interrogation."

The audience leaned back with a smirk. "Sorry, Mistah. I didn't mean nothin' by it. Gotta keep the skills sharp, ya' know." The bus hit another bump that somehow jarred loose the stranger's artificial accent, and possibly let another settle in its place. "Do you care to trade it? I'll let you pick any ball from my belt." Anthony leaned up and turned in the seat, and looked his audience in the eyes for a long moment. A complaint bounced off of Anthony's back as he relocated to near the front of the bus: "You're going to resist an offer this sweet? What a drag." The ditto on the dashboard gurgitated to investigate a sharp chirp well above the range of human hearing that sounded from the rear of the vehicle, but it saw only a familiar fellow saying something to the seat behind himself.

* * *

Approaching home with his master, Seth sounded a particularly sharp bark. Cyrus hid the evidence, got into the foyer, planted his ass on the floor, and fired off a welcoming bark just as the door opened wide. Cyrus's effort seemed almost a waste, as his master paced by as though in a daze—noticing nothing were there anything to notice and barely crossing his dog's scalp with his fingers—and headed straight to his bedroom. His equipment—what remained of it—landed in a heap halfway down the hallway.

Seth pushed shut the door, reared up, and clawed into its locked position the deadbolt. "O, Cyrus, venerable guardian of the realm! What merciless news weighs heavily upon my heart."

Cyrus gave Seth a quick nuzzle and once-over. "Speak freely, my brother."

"Our master has let himself be impressed, and now our number is three." Seth followed Cyrus around a bar and into the kitchenette, where the latter activated an override so the can opener would provide the dinner that a so soon snoring human would not. "But, that our order expands is not the dreadful factor; it is that this addition is—" Food slipped from a can. Seth's mouth became full, plugging his purple prose pipe.

Cyrus triggered the water dispenser and watched a basin fill slowly. "Please, Brother, leave me in suspense."

Seth partially choked while swallowing the second third of his dinner. "It is prey. Youthful prey." Cyrus canted his head. "If you think me mad, examine our lordship's balls and discover the truth for yourself." Seth returned to the remainder of his meal.

"Adopting prey? If that's a fact, it is not you, Brother, who I will fear is mad." Cyrus trotted to the hallway and inspected his master's equipment, finding little left but the rifle, one cooler—its contents now gone somewhat warm and likely to ruin—and a few small necessities. This filled Cyrus with a sense of disappointment and understanding of his master's tacit retreat into his bed. Cyrus dragged the gear bag away from future under-foot as he backed into the living space. "Am I right to assume that the capture of a new pokemon is not the only newsworthy event you know about?" he asked once he let the bag's strap fall from his mouth.

Seth finished wiping his face, although the wrapped sponge was running out of surface area clean enough to clean with. "There are minor details. Our lordship failed to convince the prey to seek other stewardship at one time and at another he ordered me to defeat it; which I did but only after suffering injuries. In that I may be responsible for its imposition; perhaps, if I were soundly victorious, our lordship would not have accepted its prowess. Also, the automobile was killed."

Cyrus mantled the couch. "Killed?"

"I was within my capsule, but I heard a great noise, and since then I have learned that our lordship traveled from the forest on foot with no equipment but that," Seth gestured to what Cyrus removed from the hallway, "which he could bear upon himself. The prey contributed no aid at all; naturally."

Seth joined Cyrus on the couch after the latter had activated the television's remote control and asked, "What kind of pokemon did he trap?"

"Deerling, a male of spry body, forceful manner, and impertinent attitude. Be aware of his hooves, for they are swift and deliver mighty blows despite his stature. Although my fire brought him to collapse when he challenged me, I underestimated him and almost suffered a careless defeat." Seth glanced away with great embarrassment, the spade at the tip of his tail whipping about nervously.

Cyrus recalled some bad beats that he suffered when he was youthful and foolish enough to underestimate a sawsbuck, and drew a conclusion. "Jump-kick is an effective solution to a houndoom problem. You know now to keep just out of range and let your fire overwhelm their kind?"

"Yes, my brother. I applied my field training at once and protected our honor!"

Cyrus shushed Seth, warning him to settle down. "Our honor does not rest on your record in battles that you enter unprepared or under orders to use restraint. Now, it rests on how we welcome and properly position our new comrade."

Seth watched an infomercial demonstrate the amazing, instantaneously destructive power of a premium blender. "Might our lordship seriously consider bringing prey into our fold? Can we benefit from its addition? Would it aid our hunt? Might it partake of the bounty and consume the flesh of its own kind?"

Cyrus pressed his head into a couch pillow and fondly remembered the silence of solitude that he enjoyed minutes ago. "Maybe. If master takes a job that carries us into watery territory, a proficient Grass-type might be our salvation." Seth did not like any part of that idea, so he put it out of his mind and stared at the television screen till his eyelids shut out its glow.

* * *

At daybreak, the dogs went to the eastern window after drawing open the shades with a customized pull rope, and worshiped the rising sun in their own strange way. Some time after daybreak, the dogs went to their master's room and worshiped their earthly lord by laying themselves beside his body and becoming uncomfortably warm. Gates shooed them away and wandered into his bathroom. At that point Cyrus returned to the window and gazed across the street while Seth turned on the television and salivated at commercials promoting greasy breakfast foods.

Warden's ball remained clipped and locked.

Cyrus, disappointed in not having seen what he sought, turned away from the glass and behind the couch he soon passed. "I wish he would hurry up. I haven't smelled fresh air in a week."

"O, Cyrus my brother I am fearful to report that there is nothing welcoming about fresh air." Seth buried his snout beneath a pillow near the couch's arm rest. "The scents of home," he continued slightly muffled, "are the ones for which to long."

Gates stumbled down the hallway, tripped not on the pile of gear that found its way away in the meantime but rather on his own still-aching feet, and mindlessly prepared a bachelor's breakfast: store-brand cereal. The milk in the refrigerator—um, don't ask. After a few bites, he resigned himself to a conclusion that it would taste better soggy and tended to his hounds' breakfasts in the interim. Cyrus took mental note of this variation in protocol while Seth rushed into the kitchen as though his bowl were about to receive a gift of manna. With all residents inside the kitchen paying fullest attentions to emptying bowls, the television's news bulletin was heard by none.

Rinsing out his own bowl, Gates yawned while he spoke. "Seth; Warden—the deerling—you're able to talk with him a little at whatever level wild pokemon can handle."

Seth barked an affirmation.

"Good. He'll be your detail, at least for today. Stick to him like glue and get him domesticated a-sap. I'm still feeling knackered so I'm tucking back in for a few." He unlocked Warden's ball and pitched it to Seth. It jostled and opened itself a second after Seth let it fall from his maw. Gates found some grapes in his refrigerator's crisper. He tried one; they had gone a little sour but beggars can't be choosers. He stripped them free and into his breakfast bowl, which, placed upon the floor, ensured that Warden had something to eat. Yawning again, Gates returned to his bedroom and shut its door before the deerling—it being completely mesmerized by a new environment—thought to follow along. Facing what felt at the time like the most important decision of his day, Gates set his alarm for ten-something; as if: it would not be but about an hour before a shattering cascade did the honors of welcoming Anthony back to the waking world.

* * *

The first step in training a persian is to train it to accept being trained. Positive reinforcement helps, but often a reward or incentive is required. This one stalled. Her trainer complained, but she had trained him to wait at least a little while before picking up another match, even though any medications thus far applied would have finished their work. "Finally," she purred to herself; the one she awaited arrived.

"Where's your vest?" Cyrus asked. He had never seen her on the town without it and liked the change. Ultramarine simply was not her color.

"I felt restless and went for a walk on my own, and, yeah; got ambushed. Master won't let me do that again for a while."

Cyrus stepped closer to her. "That's why you haven't been out, recently?"

Isis scoffed, "You'd better not be accusing me of cowardice," and pounced against Cyrus, knocking him off-balance as she landed with a twisted half-flip, "because once I get my numb-skull to understand that I need to learn u-turn, I'll hunt that urchin down and even the score. It's too bad, the move won't be any extra help against you."

Isis's owner whistled as one of the park circles became vacant. Isis and Cyrus took positions and brawled until they grew weary, while Gates trained Seth's agility with a flying disc for a while. After watching a few throws, Warden cast agility proper upon himself and began outperforming Seth, despite his smaller mouth. After returning the disc to Gates, Warden would dash away a few meters and turn, facing Gates with a strange stance; somewhat like that of a playful dog, but with a violent glare in his eyes and a welling tension. Noticing this, Anthony cast away the disc, studying Warden as he sprang forward for a pace before turning to follow the toy. A flashback stunned Gates' mind, recalling a moment when a sawsbuck burst from a hide and charged him. The memory was enough to make a few once-broken ribs ache again. Clearing his thoughts and observing Warden approaching him with a prancing gait, Anthony beckoned the deerling to come close as he knelt, and when he reached for the disc, Warden dropped it aside and ducked beneath his arm to twist around and lick his new mentor's chin before the man would have a chance to react. Gates looked into the pink-furred thing's deep umber eyes. The glare was still there, but now it hid behind a shining joyfulness. Feeling strangely comforted yet nervous, Gates asked his deerling to show him how fast he could move and suggested that he face downfield. Warden trotted away, shaking his body as though it were wet while a sparkling gleam spilled over it, accumulating at his hooves for a moment before his assuming a ready stance. Gates threw the disc with as much speed as he could muster. It was no match for his hasty deerling.

After exercising his pokemon at the park, Anthony realized that he needed to know what human-grade foods his new shadow should and should not eat. Like hell he would eat kibble to convince Warden to try it. Seating himself at a pokecenter terminal, he learned that the pokedex service focused on the diet of wild deerling, in particular ways to bait one with treats hoping for a peaceful capture. Warden whined and, relatively speaking, gently, double-kicked Gates' right thigh to lodge his complaint about their loitering near a glowing rectangle. Anthony dismissed him with a limp scolding. Warden whined again, but at the rectangle to complain now about its entrancing his master: Guaiacol's center had a small restaurant, Warden smelled something good, and Anthony was ignoring both.

Giving up on wading through documentation and logging into League communications, Gates immediately received a query from Velasquez. "Yeah, I got one, too," Anthony replied, before placing his trainer's device on a cradle and syncing for updates. Distracted while receiving another message, he shushed Warden for whining again, much more loudly on both parties' parts. "I don't know," he added to his next message to Carlos, "every job I've taken from him went south. I wouldn't mind a heavier right rear pocket, though. There's always an extra zero on the check, pass or fail."

Warden's patience with staying beside his master because he was supposed to shrank before the annoyance of being ignored and not being accompanied to where the food smell was coming from. Sipping a deep breath, he suddenly bellowed and knocked Anthony out of his seat while rattling the partition surrounding the kiosk. A nurse leaned across the front counter and admonished the poacher, "Sir, please instruct your pokemon to refrain from using combat techniques inside the facility. This is Guaiacol Pokecenter, not Olivine Pokecenter."

Gates logged off of the terminal, crossed the facility, and ordered two B.L.T.'s, intending to give Warden the L's. Sneaking a cast of agility, Warden claimed the yet-complete B.L.T. as his own while his master's hands were busy peeling apart the other sandwich's layers. But for the sour scolding he received, he would've dared steal a bite from the second one, if only for the B.

* * *

"Loving its trainer is not considered a disease in pokemon."

Warden leapt off of an examination table and landed awkwardly in Gates' lap, twisting his head around to lick the man's face.

"Although," the staff doctor continued, "after he evolves, that sort of expression may result in you needing medical attention." She slipped a card into Gates' T.D. and returned it to him. "They get too big for the jumping-on-people kinds of play."

"I've dealt with plenty of his kind. I know what they can do." Anthony pushed Warden's tongue away and looked into the deerling's sparkling eyes. He realized that his method of dealing with Warden's kind normally involves things like a scope or a rifled slug.

"Pure-blooded ones?" She asked with an implying tone.

"Whatever ones are runnin' around the Allylidenes. His pappy seemed pretty typical for a sawsbuck."

"Mister Gates, according to the blood-work, your deerling was probably sired by a rapidash. It could be a paternal grandfather, but either way, those horses are hard to handle. Don't be so sure you know what he can or will do until his post-evolution personality shows through."

"A dash of 'dash, eh? That'd explain his Fire-type courageous streak. The flash of a pokeball opening spooked him a bit, once, but this little bastard isn't afraid to stare down my houndooms. Should I put some time into testing what he might've inherited?" Gates gripped Warden and lifted him up while turning him mostly upside-down, somewhat cradling him with his legs and hooves clustered upward and then slipping a hand beneath to tickle his belly. Warden bleated in a chuckling tone.

"Of course, but I strongly recommend that you train him in a manner that favors teaching him return over frustration."

Warden's ears perked up at a distant sound. He kicked about, and as soon as Gates released hold of him he descended and ran out into the hallway. "Advice taken," Gates replied as he left the room with a hurried step, hoping to avoid trouble. When he reached the mouth of the medical wing's hall, he found Warden standing with his legs splayed and locked, his head low to the ground and making a rumbling groan.

"He wants to fight me; let him fight me," said an exotic bird to its master on the other side of the large pokeball pattern emblazoned on the lobby floor.

A woman pounded the counter-top she stood behind with her open palms. "No fighting in the pokecenter! We're not Olivine; take it outside." The head nurse on duty was sick of reminding people of this, today.

The bird's master, a latter-aged teenager, led the way out onto the lawn. "It's good that the pokecenter is right here; you know that fletchinder is a Fire/Flying-type, right? Grass can't touch it." The trainer continued to restrain his bird which no longer struggled to face off in the lobby, but did stare at the deerling with daggers in his eyes.

"I can guess by its color," Gates admitted with a resigned tone. "Go ahead and put my deerling in its place; it needs to learn what a Fire can do to it when it wants to." Warden dug his hooves into the lawn near the sidewalk leading to the pokecenter. He glanced back at his mentor. Gates sensed a particular meaning in that look. "Standard wager?" he asked of the bird keeper.

"You want me to put your deerling in its place, but you want to put it on the record?"

Anthony had not yet looked away from his deerling. "Warden, did your pappy teach you how to hunt hawks?" Warden glanced back at Gates again, chuckled, faced his foe, and stroked the grass with a hoof. "He's holding no item, so let's double it."

The other trainer agreed and released his bird. Wasting no time, it flew upward in two broad circles before diving down upon the deerling and casting an ember against it. Warden was scorched but leapt aside and briefly shined as he elevated his potential for speed. The bird circled again and cast another ember. Warden stumbled a bit and glowed again. The fletchinder darted upward, surrounded itself in a veil of fire, and looped over itself, swooping downward. On its way it focused its vision on the deerling below. He watched carefully looking for a clue—his own strategy was simple enough, burn the Grass-type, but the deerling issued this challenge—why? The ground approached and the fletchinder banked. Having done nothing but cast agility upon himself, the deerling could only hope to try at dodging this flame charge that should surely knock him senseless. Warden's legs buckled, but he did not turn. He wasn't dodging left or right. He was dodging—forward? This deerling was mad! Time seemed to slow down for the fletchinder as Warden leapt upward and forward. A jagged glow, a nearly-blue white, now surrounded the tuft upon Warden's head. The bird could only brace for impact.

Although Jim knew that his pokemon retained the advantage, this duel was not worth taking further undue risk. He recalled Matchbox and thus forfeited before a Warden with fur more lamp black than sienna brown staggeringly rushed headlong toward where his bird came to rest after the combatants' collision. Warden continued through that place, through a shrub, and into the pokecenter's exterior wall. The wall was not weak to electric and seemed to increase the ensuing recoil damage. Jim scoffed at that display and started walking toward the pokecenter's entryway, commenting, "Breeding in wild-charge isn't an excuse to be an asshole."

"Excuse you," replied Anthony.

Jim paused. "Your pet deerling's just barely fast and strong enough to maybe put a real trainer's pokemon on the mend and hold a team back a week. Is that what you do for fun, old man: try to screw up a seniors' summer journeying by putting a Grass-type with a tricky inherited move or two against a pokemon with a total advantage in every other way? I'm not rescheduling my badge appointment for your amusement."

"Listen up you little brat, none of this was my doing. I took mine in for a medical clearance. He ran off down the hall and when I caught up your bird was squawking about having a fight. Is that what you do for fun: pick fights when your pokemon has a total advantage and then make excuses when you take a bigger hit than you expected?"

"Whatever, old man. Why don't you worry about what's left of your deerling? He's still got his ass in the air and his head in a bush, you know." Jim entered the center.

Gates extracted Warden, shoved him beneath his left arm, and carried him inside. As he stood behind Jim, gently stroking an unconscious Warden's charcoal-coated coat with his fingertips while both waited for recovery service, Anthony reflected on Jim's words. "Old man," specifically. Had it been that long?

Yes, it had.


	2. Variegations On A Theme

Eternally Vernal, Chapter 2: Variegations On A Theme.

* * *

"Are you sure?" asked a deerling of a houndoom.

Seth again regretted his past under-performance. "Yes, impetuous one. I am quite certain that our lordship would be infuriated."

Warden snarled at the door that separated him from Gates. Planting his fore-hooves against it, he bit at the doorknob but found it nowhere near as soft as the juicy berry its shape reminded him of. It refused to pull or to turn and it tasted unpleasant. He considered other ways to assert his will upon it when a noise startled him. Then he leapt away from the door and from the white rectangles that burst through a shiny yellow flap. Seth's view of human women wearing colorful triangles and expressing their excitement at drinking artificially-colored, artificially-flavored water was obscured by his view of Warden holding colorless rectangles and expressing his excitement at gathering them up and into his mouth. "Place them where you stand, and move aside," he grumbled.

Warden complied and hopped off of the coffee table. "The door laid these eggs."

"These are not eggs. These are missives seeking our lordship's attention."

"Why do they taste like bark and leaves?" Warden wondered aloud.

Seth nosed the envelopes around on the coffee table's surface. "Because it is that from which they are made. See here," Seth placed a paw beside an address, "this marking indicates that this missive is specifically for your master. Preserve its condition." He slid it aside and indicated a different one, addressed to "Resident." "This marking means 'any being at this place' and condemns this missive as unworthy." Seth got the envelope into his mouth and huffed a powerful flame, reducing it to a flake of ash that his tongue partially drew in before it collapsed away. "A treat for me, it is, but your kind cannot partake." Seth watched Warden sort the remaining mail as the commercial break passed through. The deerling did well enough, and gathered the keepers together while Seth incinerated the remaining advertisements.

"Mentor will be happy?" Warden asked.

"Our lordship will be delighted I am sure."

Warden leapt onto the couch, catching Seth's legs with his hooves. Seth gathered himself up with a start and barked forcefully at Warden before adding, "Have caution where you land or I will do you harm twice over!"

"I accept your challenge!" Warden returned, and took an aggressive stance.

Seth hungered for another chance to soundly defeat the interloping Grass-type, but this was not the time. "There can be no challenges within our lordship's den, for he will decide us both disrespectful of his shelter."

Warden held his stance until after Seth laid himself down again like he was before, as though he had never proposed this challenge that he then so irresponsibly withdrew without admitting submission. Warden's forest mentor warned him that pokemon living among humans behaved irrationally, but this seemed ridiculous. "Why did Mentor order me to stay here with you? I should be with him."

"Our lordship is patronizing a bank. You would be encapsulated there, if not during the journey also."

"Your words are too long," Warden complained.

"Your thoughts are too short. What a great fortune it is that our lordship's pleasure is not to hear us—giving you his language would be a thorough waste." Seth changed channels.

"I don't understand that."

Channels surfed by until one dedicated to educational programs intended for young future trainers appeared. "Study with this programming till you understand all that you might." Seth closed his eyes, yawned, and sprawled a little, accidentally kicking Warden. Gazing at the screen, Warden hardly noticed.

* * *

Reminding Gates unnecessarily that his profession was not one that provides the most reliable and generous of income streams, a bank clerk turned him away with nothing more than his withdrawn balance in hand. Stepping onto the sidewalk, Gates released Cyrus so he would have an empty ear into which he could pour his complaints. Re-materialized, Cyrus barked a heightened and hopeful note, in defiance of the muffled tones that he heard while encapsulated.

"No, no," Gates said, taking up the role of wet blanket, "Unless you want a broken-down dune buggy coming off of the Hollingsmoth garbage barge as our next ride, we're hoofing it around town for a while. I guess this means we'll have to decide between morals and meals in the near future. What'd ya think if we tried being bad guys for a while?" Without regard for couth or consequence, Gates speculated aloud every means he could imagine to maintain solvency. Without concern for the future, Cyrus faked attention and enjoyed a tour of town. When their path neared the local gym, Cyrus derailed Gates' train of thought. "Gym battling? What, as contestants? Or as resident trainers?"

Cyrus barked at Gates and led him to the facility. Within, Anthony took a lobby seat and listened patiently. As though he were hunting a hart, he slipped into a patient state of mind. Cyrus wandered off for a few minutes and when he returned, he was accompanied by a freckle-faced young woman and a rhyperior that came with the house.

"Your dog told Chippy that you're desperate for work!" Bystanders glanced toward, smirked at, chuckled about, and finally dismissed from their minds Anthony and his state of affairs. Carol MacLeod sat beside him. "The thing is, we don't get enough appointments—or even walk-ins this time of year—to need another house trainer; from the times you've battled here you've got a reputation about being easy to beat, running two of the same; and that's because of the third problem," she leaned at an angle to hug Chip's arm, "with guys like this around, we're all about clobbering Fire-types. Wouldn't it be a little silly looking to have a houndoom in an earth-themed gym?"

Anthony glanced at Cyrus as though he could see inside and learn what his dog was thinking. Then, the thought that perhaps it had come to him. "Water douses both of our leads."

"That's true, but that's not enough. I like multiple battles, and if the League will hurry up and give me permission, singles will be just for open floor sparring and guest leader nights. You're going to need more than a houndoom and a houndoom, and in a partner match, you'll need something that can handle friendly earthquakes." Carol looked confused for a moment, her mind having drifted a mile away in an instant. "You don't happen to have a way to get an archeops, do you?"

"I never tried fossil hunting. I have the two houndooms and… you did say 'earth-themed'—would Grass-type be earthy enough?"

She recoiled. "Not if you're so desperate for a job that you're thinking about yanking something out of the neighbor's garden. I may be a girl but that doesn't mean I like flowers."

"He doesn't have any yet, but if that's a deal-breaker," Gates paused, waited for a tell, received none, and rose to leave, signaling his dog to follow.

Carol was miles away again, but shouted as he neared the door, "Hey! I didn't give you permission to leave."

* * *

Warden watched the throne's contents swirl, gurgle, and return, somehow purified with a short pull rope still in his teeth. It fell away when he vocalized. "Did I do it alright this time?"

Seth shook his head and, biting another rope—this one a handle atop a small stool designed to help domestic four-legged pokemon to use facilities that were designed with humans and human-shapes in mind—to replace its feature aside, and then, after exaggerating the amount of scrutiny required, evaluated Warden's performance. "Since you did not this time," Seth caught himself before saying "cowardly," avoiding inciting a new conflict, "senselessly complain about a fear of slipping and falling from the platform using a vocal attack that last time destroyed our glass shower door, I will deign to agree that you performed tolerably."

"That means I did alright, right?" Warden asked, flatly.

"Put away the platform yourself next time. But, you are not done. The final step is to examine yourself in reflection. The mirror low on the wall will serve you. Especially if you are unwell, you may require our lordship's assistance or be compelled to wash or be washed before you are appropriately cleansed and ready to return to our living space."

"Do what?"

Seth grumbled a curse to invoke the power of an unknown god. "Stand about where you are, look back at the wall where you can see your ass's reflection, and call for help if you have any dung stuck on you." Each word seemed forced, as though speaking them were a struggle.

"Oh. Say it like that next time." Warden contorted himself and examined his hindquarters. "How do Mentor's proteges obey so many commands?"

"When our lordship is disappointed, we spend a day encapsulated, reflecting on our memories. You will adapt, reflect, or be returned to the wild." Seth backed out of the bathroom and Warden followed him into the hallway. Seth glanced back, realizing that his charge needed to acquire another new habit. "Warden, when you exit the water closet, hit the light switch."

Warden paused; whatever Seth said, it was almost completely foreign to his mind. He struggled to untangle it. "Gently kick the bud of lightning-strike dawn and nightfall?"

"If you can reach it." Seth huffed a small flame to encourage Warden to get out of his way, re-entered the bathroom, and rearing up on his hind legs, demonstrated the light switch's operation. Warden took a few turns at it. With a hop he could push it on, but getting it off required a finesse deficient in Warden. With persistence he managed to turn off the light and damage the wall. Seth growled. Warden assumed that he was the target and got out of the way and into the hall. After a quick inspection of the damage, Seth looked at Warden up and down and stepped halfway out of the bathroom. "If our lordship chooses to retain you, this issue will be resolved when your body changes to become like that of your mother." Seth went into his lordship's bedroom, climbed upon the bed, and laid himself down.

Warden followed and thought about that for a moment while climbing his forelimbs up first the box spring and then the mattress. "I'll get bigger than you dogs."

Seth whipped his tail. "Unless the fates deny you."

Warden crouched, tensed, and sprang into the bed. Seth was at first startled, but as Warden flopped down immediately and wiggled around, Seth relaxed. "Mentor's sleep place is comfortable."

"Verily, our lordship's resting sanctuary is. Before we developed, we were permitted to rest alongside him, but when we grew, he refused us. We join him briefly when he is late to awaken; it is our duty."

Sniffing at the nearest pillow, inches from giving it an experimental lick, "Will Mentor let me sleep beside him?" Warden asked.

"As you are now, perhaps. As you will become, assuredly not." Seth began drifting away, undisturbed first by Warden's continuing chatter and then by the bed's shaking as Warden rose to move. He was almost asleep when Warden's warm breath awakened him.

Warden stood in a combat-ready stance, glaring at Seth. The houndoom's tail whipped, the tip of its spade catching a bed sheet. "If I killed you while you slept here, this bed would be mine."

The houndoom's tail whipped, the tip of its spade tore free of the bed sheet. "This bed would still belong to our lordship."

Warden's glare remained fixed. "What is Mentor's is Mentor's, and I am Mentor's so it is also mine. Why should I share it with you? I've proved myself nearly as strong as you, and once you've finished teaching me to live in Mentor's den and I've grown large and powerful, he will not need you anymore."

Seth's tail curved into a loop, reaching around to touch near his lumbar. "You are a dunce. You are blind not to see that our lordship does not want you. He was not testing you by putting you beyond the river and those other things you have claimed as proof of his pride in you; he wanted to be rid of you without taking your life because his heart looks upon you with pity after he claimed your father for food. He could see that you are too thick through the skull to survive without a caregiver. Be thankful that our lordship offers you this opportunity to be his lowest ward, and as for proving your strength—" With the speed and force of a mouse trap, Seth's tail whipped the other way. It crossed Warden's right rear leg, just below the ankle, and with the spade locking onto the tail's length, Seth yanked his body up, pulling Warden out from beneath his own self. Dancing on the springs with unsteady hooves, Warden could not find a new stance before Seth loosened his tail and seized the deerling by his throat. Clamping down and coughing fire, Seth performed a short rotating hop that, upon releasing his bite, threw Warden against the head board. Dazed, Warden groaned and tried to right himself. Seth denied him that opportunity. Mirroring Warden's previous stance, Seth pressed his nose against the stripling's scorched cheek and pressed his face into the pillow until much of it was swallowed up by cheap polyester filling. "—our benevolent lordship orders that I treat you gently, but if you threaten me again, I will disregard that. Learn your place, knave: our lordship leads a rank, not a file."

"I did not threaten you," the deerling whimpered, "I wanted to know why."

Seth suppressed a scoff. "You positioned yourself to attack while I dozed and then spoke of my death."

"Previous mentor taught me, if a pokemon is ignoring me and I want it to respect me, I must show it that I am ready to challenge it."

"Previous mentor got shot!" Seth barked with the timbre of a growl, the inflection of a snarl, and the heat of a branding iron. "Nothing he taught you protected him from our lordship's will." Seth stood down.

Warden struggled to rise and found his right rear leg to be malfunctioning. The pain in his neck also discouraged moving much.

"Lie still. Our lordship will care for you after returning from his tour of the city. Or, he will dispose of you, ergo the troubles you bring upon this house." Seth let himself relax on the mattress once more.

Warden obeyed silently for a short time. The funny thing he noticed about the pain was that moving to feel it sharply broke the monotony of the steady ache he felt when not moving. "You tell me to do things that I don't understand and you hurt me when I do them wrong. Why do you talk with vine-choked words?"

"Before our lordship, I had a—mentor, as you put it. A wise Psychic-type who taught me many things. I did not know why at the time but I now realize that this knowledge makes its bearer feel a loneliness. It is a curse, truly; but also an addiction. It could be worse, however."

"Worse?"

"I could feel compelled to infect you with the curse, as my mentor innocently did unto me."

Warden tried kicking the air with his injured leg. It moved awkwardly. "If using vine-choked words means you won't hurt me like this, I want to be cursed."

Seth muttered, again drifting off to sleep. "Be mindful of your desires, brother deerling."

* * *

"No! Get your butt back over here, Cyrus," Gates commanded. Truly he only wanted to pass by Isis, who was now being walked on a basic lead, and taunt her with his freedom of motion. However, if the opportunity somehow arose—. Gates continued, "I'll leave it to you to figure out how to tell him how gyms work; think you can do it in time for the interview?"

Cyrus affirmed with a bark, followed by a louder signal to herald their return.

Opening the door to no audience, Gates and Cyrus were immediately curious. Cyrus caught a scent of smoke, faint and faded. He led Gates to the bedroom where together they surveyed the sight.

"No pokemon on my bed!" Gates began. Seth bounded off of the mattress. Warden tried to move, groaned, and remained. "What the—" Gates asked himself aloud as he leaned over the deerling. Lifting it up, he learned first that touching one particular leg led to a whining groan of complaint, and second that there was now a small blood stain on his pillow case. Gates set Warden approximately where he found him, and chewed out his house-sitter. "What the hell did he do to earn this?" Anthony checked his gear for medicinal sprays. "I'm supposed to show him off. If he's all busted up—" He shook a can; its rattling sound made him think further along. "Well, if he gets taken out by you disciplining him, there's not much chance he's got what it takes."

Warden's ears rotated and he tried to raise his head, but pain discouraged that. Seth queried Cyrus and Cyrus quickly explained their visits to the bank and the gym while Gates sprayed Warden's neck generously with a burn treatment, and then his leg with a general analgesic. Warden responded quickly, although his leg remained tender and uncooperative.

"Alright," Gates said to his team, "take a leak if you gotta and get in your balls. Warden needs a healing and you two need a fresh medical clearance. We're gonna find a way to make some money or die trying."

* * *

"The wild Ursaring is frozen solid," Francois declared into a handheld radio.

Madame Wintergreen snubbed her victim as she walked away, and then snubbed Francois as he went in to investigate while listening to a field medic confirm reception of that message. She clambered into her partner's vehicle and stretched out across its bench seat beneath slightly-leaf-occluded sunlight.

"Freja! Get back over here; this bear might thaw out before he gets that truck up the hill," Francois shouted shortly before ducking beneath a snowball.

A dull rumble resonated within the crystal-encrusted creature. Francois crouched beside it, near its face, and showed it a couple of things. "See this?" He revealed a full restore. "It will make you feel better. See this?" He revealed a large calibre pistol. "If you try to fight me and Glaceon doesn't stop you, this will. Understand?" A sharp, short rumble served as an acknowledgment. Pressing a button on his radio, Francois spoke to the driver and operator of a medical van. "It's a wild mute, but it has basic comprehension at least."

Doctor Spathor replied, " 'Basic.' We called it 'normal' back home."

"Speaking of, you are actually coming and not joy riding to the nearest port for a ride back, yes?"

The doctor hit a big bump and cursed in a heightened octave before replying, "I'm still in your blasted forest, but I may be lost."

"You've been this way once before."

"Once, as a passenger. Now I'm having to drive a stick."

Francois noticed an echo and looked back along the path. "Is that why a grinding noise is scaring the little birdies away? Good, you are almost here, then."

Freja coughed a plume of fine crystals that shimmered in the air briefly, creating an ephemeral rainbow above her utility vehicle.

The doctor parked, stepped out with a sense of relief—neglecting thoughtfulness of his return trip which would naturally be down-hill—and unloaded some equipment. After defrosting the ursaring's belly with a narrow blast of ice heal, performing a few palpations, and hearing a few warning growls, the doctor gave his diagnosis. "Symptoms are consistent with your information, that it may have consumed garbage and with it something that won't digest. You said you know the camper responsible?"

Ranger Lacroix scoffed. "He's no camper, but I know who is responsible, and will happily send him the bill. Pursuant to that," he leaned down to the lightly frosted bear, "since you've been such a good and patient patient, you're going to get the best treatment Gates' money can afford."

* * *

With a whipping spin, a mawile's horns clamped onto Warden's legs and threw him out of the ring.

Anthony let his shoulders slump and raised Warden's ball to recall him. At least the contestant's prize money would be paid by the house; again. Of course, that was a fact surely not being overlooked by the house's owner. The mawile returned to her master and then to her ball. The man looked somewhat familiar but said nothing as he returned to the lobby.

Gates entered the house trainers' lounge and overheard a few chuckles. Since there were only two other people in the room, he did not wonder who mocked his performance. Placing Warden's ball in a hopper, he heard another chuckle before the device buzzed and kicked out a card. He read its text aloud to himself, "Condition non-critical. Service refused pending override. Lockout duration: 22 hours, 12 minutes."

A third other person entered. Carol's eyes never met Gates' with an admission of suspicion. "Only two spins a day, three during the on-season. If you want to keep fighting after that, it's up to you to buy revives or herbs or to go home and let it rest comfortably for a few hours."

Another snicker across the room sailed over.

"My pokemon do seem to like my bed. Why the limit?"

Carol leaned over a little and spoke low, "Can I trust you with a dirty little open secret?"

Gates nodded and hummed.

"Imagine how many times a pokemon could be cycled in one day if it's the only sixth-tier jobber on hand when school lets out for the summer season. Now, imagine you only get so many of those before your cells stop sticking together. It rarely matters because the professional battlers don't battle all that often and the newbies can't afford all those lost wagers, but yeah, a pokemon whose job is mostly to lose is going to burn out after a while. They've figured each rejuvenation knocks about eight hours off of the total lifespan. Of course that's a loose estimate and eight hours off the end is better than being laid up while a bone heals the slow way, but they add up like cigarettes."

Gates glanced at the hopper, accusingly. "And nobody talks about this?"

"It's in the full trainer's manual—you know, the one that nobody reads and looks like an old dictionary—and in the T.D.'s info if you actually open the technical information document on the nature of electromagnetic-phase pokemon storage and manipulation."

"That sounds dry."

"Am I boring you, Mister?" She leaned against the counter and gave him an odd look.

Gates adjusted his posture. "You're confusing me. I expected to be told to hit the bricks, not to learn about healing machines."

Carol raised her arms to fold them behind her head. "Your deerling has spunk, and if you actually train it to have a little strategy instead of trying to outrun and take flying kicks at everything it sees, it might make a decent fighter. But, my budget won't cover your wage and your losses and the amount of meds that will keep you from getting that guy locked out of the hopper in under four hours. So, what I'll do is cut you a deal on gym membership. Fees will be discounted or waived, depending, you'll be able to train him here whenever you like, work as a fill-in whenever I could use a spare, and if he starts showing some improvement before the summer rush, I'll consider giving you a staff trainer position. Right now, he's just too wild, too reckless, and too… pink."

"He'll be less pink if he evolves."

"But then he'll be all flowery. That's even worse. Anyway, you're done for today and so's your provisional status. Get a membership card at the counter, then hit the bricks. Should I expect to see y'all tomorrow?"

Gates slipped Warden's ball into his pocket. "Maybe. I still need some sort of a job."

As Anthony left the lounge, one of the fellows in the corner spoke up. "That bum's a poacher. He shouldn't have any trouble finding some dirty money."

Carol, still leaning, crossed her arms before herself instead. "I know. I wonder what's his game, here. Do ya think he's casing?"

"Could be, but he could do that from the audience. Why get your face and name well-known like this?"

Carol hummed. "And, why would somebody who raises 'dooms add a deerling?" She left before her question could be answered. Catching up with Gates in the lobby, where his card was coming out of a printer, she found him holding Warden in his arms. "Hey, a few more pounds of investment won't kill me. Want one of these?" She showed Gates a few technical machine discs in their acrylic cases.

"Actually," Anthony read their names and noticed that the pokecenter doctor warned him about this decision, "yeah, it can't hurt." He selected return. "Thank you."

"It can't hurt too badly if he would want to use that against you," she paused as Warden twisted a little to bite the T.M.'s case and snatch it away and realize he had no idea what to do with it after he glanced at its label and verified that it was not junk mail. "But I don't think that's a worry, here."

The attendant asked for Gates' signature and Carol excused herself. Taking a couple sheets of paper from his membership informational packet, he folded them into a crude cup, filled it at a water fountain in the lobby, and got his deerling standing steadily. It then licked his cheek.

* * *

A red blob of plasma, at any angle its silhouette being that of a bear, glowed inside the back of the doctor's van. Said doctor wielded two long metal tools, made of a specialized alloy that permitted them to pass into the plasma, become energized, and yet retain their form. Doc Spathor's brow formed beads of sweat, born of the heat of the day, the sunlight on the truck's roof, and the vent fans of the machinery that created and maintained the plasma. Needing to stay out of the way, Freja stood atop the machine's console beside other instruments and watched as the tools in Spathor's hands very slowly and carefully worked at manipulating strange forms in the plasma.

Francois's job was to watch the battery gauge. It made the slowness of progress a concern. "Down to twenty minutes, Doctor."

"That means I have ten," the doctor replied after carefully twisting one of the tools. A strange form rotated with it, becoming somewhat flat and near the surface. "Ten will be enough."

Francois sighed. She could at least sit on his lap and keep him cool. "Good. This timer is ticking down too quickly."

"Getting them through the interface is the slowest part, so I'm going to get the pieces up to the surface and park them. You'll assist me in cutting the skin and extracting them when he is solid again."

The ranger's eyebrows lifted. "You want me to dart him?"

"No, immediately after this procedure, that could kill him. You'll have to keep him calm."

"How am I to do that?"

"I thought you had established a rapport." Switching tools, the doctor seized another fragment of a plastic cooler.

"Basic comprehension! That means small words in small sentences. How am I supposed to tell a bear that you're going to take a sharp metal blade and slice and dice his flesh and convince him that's okay?"

"What does the clock say?"

Lacroix glanced at the screen. "Sixteen and twenty."

"You've got eight minutes to figure out how."

* * *

Despite the adventure of being let out of his ball, walking to the gym, competing in some matches, drinking from a paper cup, and then coming back here to the pokecenter, "You lied," was all that Warden had to say to Seth, liberated since being rejuvenated and standing watch near the pokecenter's public-use technical machine application device, called by the vulgar a jukebox, and also written upon by the vulgar often-vulgar jokes based on the names of the H.M.'s it offers to all.

"Account for your accusation, knave."

"You said he didn't want me. He showed me to other people and let me fight as his champion against others many times. He let you battle only once. He favors me, now."

Seth noticed the T.M. in Anthony's grip as he put a coin in a slot. "Our lordship did not want you; at best, the most is being made of you. Look, already he must improve you."

"Build up ski—what me?"

Seth chuckled a tiny wisp. "Are you able to comprehend these words: visceral, cacophony, migraine?"

Gates beckoned Warden to his side before the deerling could tear apart and re-assemble those lumps of communication. "Alright, Warden, this will be loud but you can't move until I let you go. Understand?"

Warden grunted. He overestimated himself. Anthony pressed a button, starting a countdown. Seth stepped up and repeated a more comprehensible translation of what he had previously said. That confused Warden, because it was the first time that the houndoom spoke plainly without being asked, as though he were a normal pokemon in the forest.

Gates pressed padded speakers against Warden's head, folding his ears back. Seth watched the countdown reach zero and enjoyed the sound of hooves scraping against floor tile as Warden kicked up and collapsed, his legs still weak from his gym adventure. When the noise ceased, the jukebox spat out a bit of headache medication and a receipt. Carrying his fawn again, Gates sat in the lobby for a while, careless of his surroundings until he heard a snap and saw a photographer, already turned away and running out of the facility.

"What the hell?" Gates asked.

"You're famous now," replied a nurse at the counter. "He comes in every week looking for a different theme to photograph and put in his gallery across town. He said this week he's looking for precious pokemon that have adopted… um… unspectacular trainers."

There were worse things to be famous for.

* * *

"I think he likes you." Humor kept the doctor's mind off of the drive back down.

Francois struggled out of a literal bear hug. "Freja, can you talk to him?"

Madame Wintergreen coughed a short-lived cloud of frost to clear her throat of a bit of berry matter, licked clean her muzzle, and trotted over to the ursaring that, despite his grumpy facial expression, refused to let Lacroix loose. They chatted. Ultimately she walked back to the vehicle, leapt up and into it, emerged in the rear, and tapped its tailgate with her right paw three times.

The ursaring grunted something to Freja. Francois grunted, too, "Unnn, no. No! That's against all of the regulations in the book."

She said something to them. Only the ursaring understood it. It had been a long time since anyone carried Francois around, but flailing his limbs only asked the bear to snarl and grip him more tightly, lest he fall free. This situation was getting too weird for the doctor's comfort; he quickly fired up his truck and headed back down the path. If the road were planning to roll his vehicle over, leaving first meant somebody would come his way soon after. If it weren't, leaving first ensured that he would not be the next human to be captured by those bizarrely-behaved pokemon.

Having lowered the tailgate, Francois thinly threatened his superior, "You must have a good excuse for this. I am not taking responsibility for your orders, 'Madame.' "

The bear settled into the back of the vehicle. Freja settled into the passenger seat. Both stared at Francois until he got in as well and started the engine.

"I'm not!" He waved a finger in Freja's face. "Not again."

She frostnipped that offensive finger's tip.

* * *

Warden trotted to the fore. "The most important one leads," he asserted.

Seth briefly tensed his muzzle. "You run ahead, like bait; we protect our lordship closely."

Warden stopped until his companions caught up. "You're not enough. Mentor needs three, so he defeated Old Mentor so he could add me. Now, Mentor is protected."

Seth lowered his head in frustration. "Knave, your only service is to generate foolish words that struggle to carry half-baked thoughts."

Cyrus lowered his head, too, misreading Seth's gesture at first, "Enough!" he grumbled, "If either of you makes a sound, I'm biting your tail off." The next to make a sound was Cyrus, indeed, barking twice and stepping aback as they neared the entryway to their apartment building.

Gates almost fumbled the bargain-priced merchandise that he bought at an off-label store, including a shower curtain to stand where glass once stood. "No, not that guy."

Cyrus barked again. That guy.

Maximilian's back was turned to the quartet when they would have come into sight. "If I must get the landlord to open this door, I will."

A television, audible behind the door, became louder.

"So be it. I am many things, but I am not to be ignored." Maximilian clicked his heels as he turned and faced Gates and his party. Max's mouth fell open slightly. "You leave your T.V. on when you're out, now?"

While the humans exchanged pleasantries, Cyrus got his nose against the door's gap. There was something unfamiliar in there. Something familiar, too; although so faint he was not sure of its identity. He barked sharply at the gap three times. Television noise ceased immediately. Anthony crowded his dog out of the way, found his key, dropped a bag of ready snacks—spilling much of its contents—and got his door open. Immediately on patrol, Cyrus and Seth squeezed between Gates' legs and the door's woodwork. Maximilian let himself in behind Anthony. Warden nosed at the bag, soon hiding his face within it.

Gates plopped the remaining items on his kitchenette's counter and glanced over his shoulder. "I thought your kind couldn't cross a threshold without being invited."

Maximilian drew a square of paper from his suit jacket's inside pocket while sliding a previously-delivered folder a short way across the surface of the table upon which it rested. He spoke while folding the square. "That's the lore of demons and vampires." He felt a faint sensation, like a draft, and glanced toward the doorway. Warden shook his head free of the bag, sniffed the air, looked back down the hallway, and growing bored and lonely, came inside.

Anthony passed by Mister Syfax and his deerling to retrieve the dropped bag. "Are you denying a habit of biting necks and sucking blood?"

"I prefer to take positions that pay well."

Gates chortled and picked up the bag. "Warden, you could've brought this in with you. I don't need a third dog that's bad at fetch."

Maximilian continued. "However, you are free to add 'esquire' to my name if you prefer."

The bag seemed to be one snack pack short, but market negligence could not seize his foremost concern. "I'm about to add 'get the hell out of my house' to your name."

Maximilian finished his craft and placed it upon Warden's nose upon noticing that the deerling was staring at him. "Keep this on your nose and I'll give you a treat."

"Don't take candy from strangers, Warden."

"Even if it's rare? Mister Gates, you know that our employer expects prompt responses. Your fair-weather friend, Velasquez, understands that. Why have you dawdled?"

"I don't like the job."

"You didn't say 'no.' "

Gates mumbled, "I might need the money."

The paper crane tickled Warden's nose, but he wanted the promised treat. Meanwhile, Cyrus and Seth discussed their findings. Something broke in: pokemon and female; it left a scent of persian—a particular persian, Cyrus noted to himself—on the couch, but elsewhere the scent differed. Their investigation continued.

Anthony filled a pot with water. "It's a shit job is what it is."

Maximilian withdrew a particular sheet from the envelope. "See, I even went to the extra trouble of having it printed with a yellow background: Target is confirmed old enough for separation from parent, and the family has no pack alliances that could result in a melee. It's not like it's still sticky with egg fluids. Not that that stopped you in the past."

"Once!" Gates shouted as he turned and pointed accusingly with the box of spaghetti in his hand, sending what remained within the box soaring into the living space. "I didn't like that job. But, I needed the money."

"A flexible man is a survivor, Mister Gates. Speaking of flexible, I see that the mighty hunter has suffered a change of heart. Did you go vegetarian on us?"

Gates picked up the larger groups of pasta, three-second rule be damned; it was getting boiled anyway. "No. I got a pokemon that's brave if not fearless, that never gives up, and that's going to earn the respect of anybody who tries taking a shot at him; you get what I'm sayin'?"

Maximilian twitched his eyebrows, crouched, removed the paper crane from Warden's nose, and began palpating the deerling. "Overall size is about right, coat needs proper nutrients, well developed muscles, especially around the flank—is he a fast runner or a hard kicker?"

"Both." Gates added more salt.

Maximilian turned Warden sideways and continued his examination. "Pure stock?"

"Pokecenter doc said he might have rapidash in him."

Maximilian hummed. "Now that's a combo worth two." Rising, he reached into a different pocket and placed on the counter a pair of rare candies and a plastic card. "Train him well, and when he gets big and randy, I might be able to provide some other opportunities that you won't not like so much—when you need the money."

Gates glared at Mister Syfax.

"Oh, assuming you don't feel peckish and have him as a midnight snack, of course. Anyway, we won't make a move on this unit until a proper home is found for the current offering, so conditionally I can let you have a little more time to consider the job and get back to us, but don't mistake circumstance for privilege."

"God, Max. 'Unit,' 'current offering'; they're living creatures you know, with minds and thoughts—especially those," he indicated toward the paper with yellow highlighting, "but all of them. Have a shred of respect." Gates added an inquisitive "What is this?" when he picked up the plastic card.

"An incentive. Good for one T.M. on Simian's dime. Save the card after you swipe it; it has my private number which you might find convenient at some point in the future. Any T.M. you like. Even the pricey ones they only do limited runs on, like speech, if you want to learn about pokemon minds and thoughts directly. Frankly, pokemon that can speak tend to mind and think a bit too much for my tastes; of course, that's why you had your houndooms trained specially instead of just getting their brains upgraded, right?"

"Something like that. Maximilian Syfax, esquire, get the hell out of my house."

Maximilian smirked and turned to leave, but paused just before shutting the door behind himself. "Oh, since your finances are apparently out of order, consider your next rent payment taken c—"

"I don't want your damned charity! Keep your money—"

"Your money," Max counter-interrupted, "a small advance of your payment for doing the job. Of course, if you don't accept the job, I guess it would then be unearned, but that semantic makes no difference to a man in my position. Enjoy your dinner."

With the entryway clear, Cyrus and Seth investigated the only area they had not yet while Anthony re-loaded their feeding machine and asked his deerling what he should prepare for its dinner, as though he had forgotten that it could not intelligibly reply.

The persian scent faintly and other scent boldly; it was fresh on the wall just behind the door. The dogs were so busy with their mystery that they almost forgot about food, but then Gates activated the machine and with Seth at attention, Cyrus decided to call off the search and think about the clues for a while.

* * *

Were he a Fighting-type, it could have been a force-palm. Despite lacking the mysterious energies that pokemon channel, Francois's attack proved super-effective against an ursaring he found impolitely raiding the ranger station's refrigerator as though it were a large cooler in the rear of a crashed four-wheel drive. He second guessed his courage when the ursaring recovered his senses and bellowed in the ranger's face, but the beast then pawed at its nose, grumbled again, and slinked away.

A minute later, Madame Wintergreen indicated that he should give the bear one berry. Preferring not to awaken at some time in the middle of the night suddenly buried beneath five inches of snow, he did so, and was relieved when the bear ate the berry from his hand without also eating his hand. It faced away and leaned into the corner in which it sat. Francois crossed the quarters and sat on his bunk. "This breaks every regulation in the book. Feeding the wildlife, harboring the wildlife without medical necessity, interfering with the natural—"

Freja whistled at Francois and gestured toward the poster.

"I'm holding you accountable for this," said Ranger Lacroix as he rolled into his bunk.

The glaceon whistled again and snacked on some of the food scattered during the boys' combat. There was no sense in letting it go to waste, after all.

* * *

Anthony put Warden's ball into Guaiacol Gym's house trainer rejuvenation machine's hopper and pressed its button. Outclassing that click and hum was the swish and click of the lounge's main door swinging open, swinging shut, and becoming locked. Anthony looked behind himself and saw his boss. She was dressed somewhat formally, which was a dramatic shift from her normal attire—attire that suggested she had just returned from, or was about to begin, chasing mountain goats around the faces of steep inclines. Instead, she cut an image befitting someone who processes an insurance claim filed after somebody less nimble than a mountain goat misses a hold and takes a tumble. Anthony looked back to the machine—its display was unreadable.

Carol's high-heeled shoes clicked against the floor with every step she took. "Just the fella I was looking for," she admitted as she approached. "I was hoping we could discuss your position in my gym."

Anthony exhaled heavily. "I'm being let go, aren't I?"

Carol giggled as though she were being tickled by a favorite uncle. "Oh, no. No. It's the opposite." A cheap table squeaked as she hopped up and backward to sit upon it. "Whether you like it or not." Kicking her legs up, she poked Anthony's lower back with her three-inch heels and as he turned, reflexively, grappled Anthony's midsection with her ankles—letting her shoes fall free to the floor—drawing him away from the counter. "What do you think about this position?" she asked as she (barely) brought her toes together behind him.

"Caro—"

The gym leader tilted her head up with a forceful jerk. "I think you mean to say, 'Miss MacLeod.' " She tensed her legs and brought him against the tabletop, and herself.

"Miss MacLeod, are you—feeling okay?"

She smirked. "I'm a little warm. You have hands; feel me and tell me your findings."

Anthony noticed something in the air, a scent that could be described best as "natural." He let his hands find her. Warm indeed; her clothing felt almost like velvet. Soon, her arms came around his torso and she pressed herself against him, and sighed.

"Ca—Miss, you're half my age."

"I'm legal everywhere in Ocimene except Carthamus. You aren't thinking honeymoon destinations already, are you?"

Anthony gripped her body as tightly as she gripped his, and then a little tighter. "I'm thinking there's a good chance both of us are going to wish we'd thought twice about this, someday."

She moaned as his hands moved lower, soon gliding along the inside of fabric and finding a change in the terrain. "Then let's have as much fun as we can before someday comes."

Anthony leaned forward, trying to lay her flat upon the table, but she hardly reclined. For a little thing, her body owned a hidden strength. Making no further effort, he instead shifted his hand and twisted its wrist, feeling for warmth and a hint of moisture. The scent became stronger; as did her vocalizations.

Something else became stronger; and longer. She gripped him too tightly to let him pull away and try to see what he felt. "Carol," he asked, "are you… are you a…"

With a gasp and a groan, she pressed against him more strongly than before—the strength, the warmth, the scent—he awoke. "Get out of my bed!" Gates screamed at the top of his lungs. That awakened two houndooms and one neighbor behind the near wall. Warden bounded down the hallway and skidded into a half-splay when he hit the cheap vinyl flooring of the kitchenette area. Gates cursed indistinctly and went about some business.

Cyrus re-rested his head on the couch's proximal arm and muttered, "A valiant effort, Deerling."

Seth, who—having been startled out of his skin and out of his place—fell to the floor and landed awkwardly upon some clutter, came around to face the deerling. "I instructed you against imposing upon our lordship. Must I instruct you once more—"

"Shut up, Seth," barked Cyrus.

Warden flicked his tongue out as Seth returned to his position. "I told you he liked me. When he sleeps, he comforts all of me. He just doesn't want to show you that he already likes me more." Turning away, he flicked his tail at them both with a snub and trotted back down the hallway.

"Warden, get out."

Warden bleated.

"Now. Get—get off of—"

Warden grunted.

"Ow, that—stop—Warden, I—I'll get your b—"

Warden squeaked. A moment passed.

"Okay, fine. But we face different directions."

When the sun rose and the houndooms arrived to awaken their master, they found Anthony holding Warden like a teddy bear, his chin buried in the deerling's fluffy scalp tuft.

Seth growled. "Such braggadocio…"

Cyrus snapped at Seth to get his attention. "If you want to use compound words, use them right. This little one succeeds."

The 'dooms completed their duty in an alternative manner and departed: Cyrus to the window, and Seth to the couch to engross himself in commercials and trivial morning shows such that he could convincingly claim that he did not notice Warden's swagger as the latter strutted about to remind his neighbor in this rank whom is permitted use of the comfy place to sleep.


	3. Tunnel Visions

Eternally Vernal, Chapter 3: Tunnel Visions.

* * *

A vertical blind slat that refused to synchronize with its mates let a sliver of the sun's first light pour through Gates' bedroom window and pool as warmth on Warden's tuft. Soon overcharged, he rose, stretched, and tried to share his energy with his mentor. Licking Anthony's face, once, twice, thrice, twice twice, yet again, and finally twice thrice—or ought that be thrice twice?—that now be-slobbered visage's right eye opened.

"Don't you have anything better to do? Like turn green?" Anthony did not expect a meaningful answer, but Warden vocalized enthusiastically. Then, Warden stared, waited, and grunted. "Go wake the dogs, why don't ya?"

Warden bounced upon and bounded from the mattress faster than Gates could get his body's upper half upright. He wiped his face with his hand. Then, he wiped his hand with his bed sheet. Then he decided that today would be a good day to wash the lot. At least, as good as any. He dragged the sheets away behind himself, wadding them up and casting them down the hallway into a heap near the kitchenette.

As they landed, their absorbed odors were evicted to waft through the living room. Seth snarled half-heartedly; deerling in the mix only reminded him that there were no other humans' scents on the cloth. However short their visits, guests meant better meals, and better scraps. Today, the most he could pray for would be bacon, and as though kismet, today's Calvin Grovewell's Gourmet was focused on that very manna. Seth dashed into the kitchen and stole a dishtowel—how embarrassing it would be for a professionally-trained pokemon such as himself to let inspired salivation touch a couch cushion.

Warden visited Cyrus's window. "I don't see your friend."

"Neither do I," Cyrus admitted, slightly shifting his paws' positions on the windowsill.

The deerling watched the same nothing that Cyrus watched until he grew bored. "You and she should decide on a time."

Cyrus let his fore-half fall to the floor. "That would take the fun out of it." He glanced at Seth and the television, and turned back to face Warden. "There are worse ways to waste time staring."

* * *

If Basil Northerncourt possessed any sense of humor with which to appreciate Lacroix's gambit, he suppressed it. "Impersonating Ranger organization personnel by proxy," he decreed while adding the charge to a list of failings discovered during this audit. Francois swiped a Rangers hat from Fardeau and used it to shoo the bear from his terminal and chair before replacing it on a hook near the door. "At the rate you're losing points, I strongly suggest that when I finish inspecting the equipment locker this matter of having a wild ursaring in your station and believing itself as under your care ought to be cleared up."

Francois's shoulders drooped. He glanced at Fardeau. The bear looked angry; but not furious. "You know I didn't actually save you. I just helped. Why didn't you glom onto that doctor? Look, I've had it." Francois opened the door. "If you want to be my pokemon, then follow my orders. Go out and patrol a circuit around the perimeter of the forest."

Fardeau grunted and snarled before plodding past Francois and onto the station's porch. Francois followed the beast out through the door as part of a dodge when he noticed that Freja was readying a snowball. Hearing it splatter on the inside of the wall, Francois ignored the attempted assault and encouraged the bear's continued departure. Fardeau paused, however, when Freja whistled and trotted behind him, giving him a Rangers hat. Fardeau reared up to stand, put it on, and maintaining the two-legged stance, left with a prideful stride along the automobile path. "The hat is magic," Francois muttered over—but for—his partner as he walked past her to re-enter, "hat off, he's a bear, hat on, he's a man." Out of sight when Northerncourt returned, the auditor asked what became of the bear. Remaining ambiguous, Lacroix answered him, "He is no longer wild. He obeys my orders."

"Good, good," exhaled Basil, making another note, "We will, of course, expect him to be transported to home base for proper ranger-aide pokemon training when the next course begins."

"Of course," Francois assented half-heartedly. Behind Basil's back, he shot a dagger-sharp glance at Freja as she lost her composure and let a number of high-pitched giggles escape.

* * *

Seated in the center of his couch, flanked by hell-hounds and trying to look through a deerling that decided it needed to be directly in front of the television, Gates ate a B.L.T. while distributing small amounts of B to those surrounding him. Despite his attempt to pawn off some L and T, the deerling demanded strict alphabetical order. Before them on the screen aired the morning news, and a profitable tragedy caught Anthony's ears.

"…although the young trainer's equipment was discovered near the recreational area, authorities are now expanding their search radius to much of the area surrounding Mount Buchu. Trainers with tracking experience are being recruited to aid in the search…"

Tearing a gigantic bite from his breakfast, Anthony cast what remained on the coffee table for his team to fight over. He tripped on his bedding and almost fell, but with a dramatic kangaroo-like hop salvaged his momentum and barely didn't choke on what he was at the time swallowing. Hurriedly donning something publicly presentable, he called across his apartment. "That's a sure per diem if we join the search and a sure reward if we find him. Cyrus, you've got the nose. Warden, if I know my stuff, you're fit for support. Seth, you get the watch."

That was music to his inconspicuous ears.

Gates paced down the hallway, evaded the laundry now neglected, and as best he could reloaded the dogs' food and water dispenser. With a couple clicks and flashes, he took his chosen two and set off for downtown. Locking the deadbolt behind them, Seth climbed into the couch, rolled over, and wiggled around. No Wardens, no problems.

Gates' first stop was Guaiacol Pokecenter. He snagged a terminal to offer his services to the ranger station near Mount Buchu. When asked for references, he told them that Ranger Wintergreen at Allylidene Station Five would vouch for him. Awaiting approval, he investigated pokedex information and took a few notes. Approved and granted an expenses voucher, Gates then rushed to the local market and cursed that the pokemon products were kept at the rear of the store. He released Warden and put the deerling upon the counter where he saw a sign advertising technical machines and other premium products. "This thing can learn flash, right?"

The clerk turned around and spoke with a laugh somewhere between amused and suspicious. "Aw, everybody knows that. Give me a harder one."

"No. Give me a T.M."

Using a key and operating a device that genuinely looked like a speculative fiction film prop that would store samples of space alien organs, the clerk asked, "Limitless or one-shot?"

"What's the difference?"

The machine shuffled around stacks of acrylic cases containing discs. "About forty quid."

Gates opened his wallet and remembered its nearly vacuous status, but also that it contained a freebie. Then again, to spend it on flash—even limitless, it would not resell for much. His mind drifted toward something the dogs could use. Warden's mind drifted toward something interesting on the counter and asked Gates about it with demanding tones; garbled vocalizations that brought Gates' attention back to the real world.

The clerk welcomed his customer's return to alertness. "Your sap-sipper seems to have a lot to say. We do have one speech in stock if you're interested, probably the last one we'll see till fall."

Anthony looked at Warden. Warden shook his tail and vocalized once more. Anthony ran his finger along the card in his wallet. "You know, everything in my life's been screwed up one way or another since I met you. If I get you this, you're going to make me regret it, aren't you?" Warden stared at Gates, took a combative pose, and nodded his head with a snort. "Damn right you better. I'm not going to tolerate you slacking off." Gates put his trainer's device on the counter, "There should be enough in there to cover one flash, and," he withdrew the card that Maximilian gave him and, after two false starts, handed it to the clerk, "this deerling better have a lot of important things to say." Warden came to realize what was going on, and pranced in a tight circle on the counter, recognizing that he just now gained another angle from which he could prove Seth wrong and extend his lead. The deerling's dance of happiness distracted Anthony from noticing the clerk's reaction to the card.

After returning to the pokecenter, Gates spent much of his balance to trade-up his T.D. for a model with some communication features and activated his account on it. Immediately, Velasquez pinged him. "Should I put a wager on how long this one lasts?"

Having solicited a nurse's assistance, Anthony pecked together a reply while they walked to the jukebox alcove. "Who's making the book?"

"You are," Carlos replied, "two to one, steaks at Jerome's, says you break it before the end of next month."

"On." Anthony disabled incoming messages and turned to the nurse. "He struggles during the squealing, and I've heard this is one you don't want to screw up." He flashed her the flash T.M., and noticing her reaction, twisted his wrist to show the other one.

"Oh, yes; that one's a doozy," she confirmed, "He won't be fit to fight for most of the day, after that. Do the easy one first."

Anthony loaded the flash T.M. into the machine, pressed a button, and drew out from its cabinet appropriate speaker cuffs. "As long as he can walk; he'll be back-up, anyway. We're going to Buchu; see if we can find that lost kid."

The nurse crouched and held Warden more with a hug than a grip, although he quickly realized how well she restrained him. "I hope somebody can. Losing a trainer is a terrible start to the summer."

The countdown reached six. Anthony placed the cups over Warden's ears. Until a piercing squeal obliterated all internal monologue, he considered which was more heartless: her phrasing that statement as though the League's season was what mattered, or that his own involvement was on spec.

* * *

Francois's arms were getting tired, but the only open space on the award wall was near the top. "We really have to find that—"

Freja whistled curtly.

"—bear before—"

Freja struck the back of his head with a tiny snowball. Francois strained to look over his shoulder. She signaled with her right paw. He moved a substitute for a document frame over another inch. She nodded and whistled again. Francois tacked up the award. It was a facsimile print-out in a plastic binder envelope, but it did affirm that Ranger F. Wintergreen received a perfect evaluation. The facsimile machine had printed another page, but it was just a second warning for Ranger F. Lacroix that his performance is expected to improve.

"There. Every morning you can wake up, stretch your legs, bury me in frost, clear your eyes, and admire this proof of your greatness. May we find the bear, now?"

Freja admired her memo for a moment, but alas, duty called. With a little effort in laying it out, she rolled into her vest and fastened it properly. Headed to the door, she complained at Lacroix for being unready, as he was looking for his own hat. In that moment, he considered where the snowball had struck: the wall behind the hat hook. With a frustrated yell he demanded of her an explanation why she gave the bear his hat rather than one of the extras in the closet. At her terminal, she selected a pattern of symbols that Francois interpreted as, "Knowing family, smelling their smell; remember his friend, you."

* * *

"Hey, hey! Watch that hand."

Gates' complaint was answered telepathically by the kadabra that was wrapping him with her arms and pressing her body against his in the center of a triangle cornered by silver posts. "You're paying me to do this with you." She let her hand wander a bit, again.

"No, the Ocimene Rangers are picking up the tab, and if you aren't going to hurry this up, I'll take the damned bus."

She found the right spot. "Hold your breath, Sir," she projected.

Contrary as ever, Anthony opened his mouth and let words fall out, some of them asking why he should. During their prolonged teleport to a set of silver posts temporarily installed at a distant ranger station, he realized why: only the air in his lungs was coming along with him, and the air he and his transporter traveled through was not interacting with his bronchioli. Fortunately, their matter re-synchronized before he passed out. Gates' legs nearly buckled as he felt his weight return, and Kit's buckled indeed, causing her to fall to the ground.

Kneeling over her, he patted her cheek rapidly and with increasing force hoping to revive her. Although she showed no expression of reaction, she immobilized his hand and cautioned him, "Be gentle, Friend. Pokemon girls with whiskers usually find them to be sensitive." Mentally manipulating, she twisted his hand a little and used it to gently caress her left cheek and left whisker. With a slight smile, she opened one eye a sliver and sensed his reaction. For four tenths of a second, he considered it, but then the door slammed shut again.

Gates left her lying in the triangle to approach a busy open-air tent and spent the next fifteen minutes being briefed by the rangers, examining maps of the mountain with its many cave systems, and learning about the search efforts heretofore. A gut feeling, a sinking feeling, gripped him and he selected a grid square to search first and a few others that looked like good candidates. Confirming that they had not yet been searched, he signed-off on his selection, stood, and turned. The kadabra now sat on the ground beyond the triangle, sipping slowly from a can of lemonade. Gates concentrated on a question to say it loudly in his mind, "Are you still in my head?"

She vibrated a spoon that rested between two right-claw digits by wiggling those fingers. "A little."

"Don't you have more fares to pick up?"

The spoon fell slack and motionless. "You know how my powers include a hint of foresight. Not many fares today, but a chance that you change your mind and want to go home. I don't sense you getting what you want from this mission."

Gates left the big map and walked to the silver posts. "Tell me what you see," he demanded.

Kit stood slowly and looked into his eyes. "I can't see it, like you think of 'seeing'; it's not certain yet and I can't focus well, but—I'm sorry, but I don't feel you becoming a hero today."

Gates took a deep breath, despite—if not in spite of—her not having instructed him to. "You know, that's part of why I train Dark. You Psychic-types are always pessimists, always teasing with half-information, and always trying to pull something. Let me guess, you suggest I withdraw my offer to help search for that kid and spend some time getting to know you better."

Kit opened her mouth briefly, but said and projected nothing.

"Yeah, I know your game. Go find another fare to feel up."

She heard him speak, and heard in his mind an addendum that he did not say as he walked away. Standing, she wanted to reply to and with a lot of things, but her sixth sense kicked in again. It would be of no use. Kit closed her eyes and reflected on the faint sensation she felt, when she first saw him and made a prediction based only on her first impression of him, before considering that he would act according to first impressions, likewise. It would've been nice if he were a Psychic-type, too. Alas, those humans were always defensive, always seeming reasonable at first, and always evading their happy endings. She walked through the triangle, vanishing with a flash as she crossed its center, upon which a single drop of saline fell as the surrounding glow faded.

Although he could not really notice it when it was there, Gates did sense her departure as whatever link she had established in his mind pulled away. He turned back and walked to where she just was, finding her lemonade can left behind. He stomped it flat, spraying its fluid about the spot and discoloring his well-worn boots. Taking the can to a bin alongside the station, he noticed a public telephone attached at its side. Out of curiosity, he checked his T.D.'s balance and finding not enough balance to be worth saving but enough to be worth tossing away on a bad habit, he inserted his trainer's card into the telephone's slot, and at the tone, entered a number that he was ashamed to have memorized.

"Thank you for calling Ocimene Psychic Network. Please hold briefly while one of our psychics senses your need. Billing begins when you hear the tone." After seconds of silence and the promised chime, he heard a voice come through—that of Madame Colette, as always. "I sense that your mind has been touched. It has been stirred and agitated, but not by that touch but your own action. Is this what you wish to ask about?"

Gates smirked as he habitually did when a psychic, at his call or on television, asked any question of a client. "Don't you know?"

"I see many paths, but you must choose your course."

"Then tell me, will I find him?"

Madame Colette made a funny sound. "Most likely. You have resisted her protection and you refuse to be guided off of it."

"Her pr—are you talking about that teleport fox?"

"That what box? I sense a feminine soul trying to aid you. Do you want me to examine it through your contact?"

"No, forget it. Just let me know if you ever happen to see it in your crystal ball going away forever. I'll throw myself a party."

"Will you ask anything more of me?"

He glanced at his account balance on his T.D., little remained. "The job that the esquire offered. Will I?"

"Yes."

"Should I?"

"No."

"Why not?"

The line went dead and Gates' balance displayed zero, but he heard a whisper nonetheless, gentle as a disturbance in otherwise still air, "He has suffered enough."

* * *

"Wa ga-ba na-ba-ba-ka-ga-ga-fa!"

Gates glanced back at his deerling and saw it kicking at a rock as though it had sinned against them. "Yeah, break that rock and see if there're any other vowels inside. Cyrus! You still got a trail?" Cyrus barked and spat a fireball up the hillside. Noticing where it landed, the poacher could not help but ask, "What the hell was this tot thinking?"

After Cyrus shared his thought, Warden tried his best. "Ha wa pawa-ba laka fa sa-ga da para!"

Gates rolled his eyes with tepid regret. "Well played, Maximilian. Well played."

"Ha da wa-pa?"

"Worry about birds, not words, Warden. They supplied us with meds but revivals are on me; those crystals are over six pounds a pop, you know. Assuming a gone-feral pidgeot doesn't just carry you off and eat you."

"Bada?"

Pointing toward the sky, he found an example. "Bird, Warden. Bird."

"Bada-bada ga boom!" Warden let a little electricity arc across the tuft between his ears and bolted up the grade, getting halfway from Anthony to Cyrus before losing his footing and tumbling down, halfway back before being caught by a stony outcropping. Gates overtook and picked him up, wedging him beneath his left arm. "What did I tell you about showing off?"

"Da doo ta."

Gates sighed. "Da ra, Wadan. Cyrus, did he really climb this shit? Where are you?" A fireball flew over a ledge. When Gates got over it, he found Cyrus and a small cave entrance. It was not on the map. Out of curiosity, he kicked a rock and watched it gather momentum as it skipped down at least thirty meters of incline, changed direction, and continued down the hill half lengthwise, making for an area near the regular trail that had been searched earlier. "That explains the bag. At least it fell alone."

* * *

His build having shifted away from "athletic" and toward "stocky" in a slow progression that began many years ago, Gates had a little trouble following his pokemon into the cave entrance that Cyrus identified. It soon opened up enough for him to take a crouching stance, which he happily adopted. After receiving instruction and making three failed attempts, Warden managed to cast flash upon himself. A far superior illumination than what Cyrus's fiery breath or Gates' flashlight could provide, Warden trotted ahead and passed the houndoom with a prideful strut. He almost made a snide comment, having grown accustomed to Seth's presence, but caught himself.

A faint clatter of hooves, claws, and steel-toed boots echoed deeply as the path snaked along, ever widening. Gates called back his too-far ahead luminary, and in the interim cast his torch upon something that crunched under foot. He found a light aluminum can with a trigger nozzle on top. Although obviously spent, the printing on its side indicated that the can could be redeemed for a bob; two in Coumarin. Gates shoved it into his bag, telling himself it was evidence, but knowing that he would not leave behind a dropped shilling, either.

The next time Warden tried to step ahead, Cyrus bit his nape and pulled him back. Gates knelt beside them and opened his pack. "Gifts from the rangers. I hope they fit." He withdrew two small plastic masks, each sized approximately to match the snouts of his pokemon. Having worn one before, Cyrus did not mind, but only being threatened with being put in his ball and consequentially not proving his usefulness to his mentor convinced Warden to take a moment to get used to a filter pinching his nostrils and adding resistance to his breathing. Although he would not be as acutely affected, Gates prepared an impromptu mask for himself from a handkerchief. Keeping near the stone wall, he leaned around a corner and saw into a rather spacious chamber. Equipped with a colored filter, he used his flashlight's beam to paint the ceiling and confirmed Cyrus's sense of hearing. "Fire in the hole," Gates whispered to himself as he pulled a pin from another tool of the ranger service's cave search kit. The zubats within became alert as a repel grenade clattered across the floor, and all scattered when it detonated, emitting first a bright, disorienting flash, and then a broadly dispersed fog. Immediately, Gates ordered Warden to stand at his side, bringing his radius of illumination into the chamber soon enough to see the straggler zubats making their escape. "Alright, we know the easy way out." Snapping three differently colored glow sticks, he marked the chamber, the inlet, and the outlet. "Lead the way, Cyrus. We ought to find another can in a hundred meters or so."

And so Cyrus led his companions through a winding passage. Indeed, from spent repel can to spent repel can. Their investigation, slowed slightly by brief interruptions from lone zubats hankering for a blast of fire, progressed steadily until Gates noticed a familiar boot print in some powdered stone, surely a wound caused by a diglet eruption in the distant past. "Warden, run a circle around this area for me."

The deerling happily dashed fore and aft, clambering up the walls where he and it were mutually inclined. He bounded off of a graveler which quickly roused to complain and quickly collapsed as Warden kicked it senseless. For a moment, the fawn staggered in a bit of a daze afterward, but continued casting light about to aid Gates' survey.

"Woah, there. That slope." Cyrus and Gates worked their way to where Warden stood. "That's how we got in. This part loops unless you go deeper." Gates snapped another glow stick and placed it near the passage. "Alright, time to go deeper."

A passage downward led to a wide chamber, very moist and somewhat noisy, littered with stalagmites. Cyrus complained whenever he stepped in a shallow pool, but Gates ordered him to press on. Warden seemed delighted. Weaving around the stone needles, he watched with awe as their shadows danced with him, alternatively reflecting and wanting for his glow. Nearing the bottom, Warden delighted in a new game: channeling orbs of energy at the gravelers that rose to defend their territory. Gates had not seen Warden do this before, and paused to check his trainer's device. He did so briefly, as Cyrus barked and, with Warden's display threatening other gravelers into acquiescence, led his party to the rear end of the chamber. A trickle of flowing water indicated yet another deeper level to this hell. Something crunching beneath Gates' right boot got his attention. Lifting it away, he discovered a now shattered claw attached to the other remains of a small, Bug-type pokemon. His hopes sank into the earth, and he and his companions followed it down.

* * *

Seth growled. "Doing that, you're going to make a ruin of them."

An umbreon, entangled in now somewhat disheveled bed-sheets, scoffed at his complaint. "Human beds are too comfortable to resist, and rolling around in sheets; yes, it's a wild thing to do but it beats fall leaves paws-down. Join me!" She rolled about some more. "Again."

"I'm exhausted. You've worn me away." He hopped to stand with his forelegs on the edge of the bed. "My brother and I were trained for tracking and brief, intense conflicts. Not for steady endurance."

The sheets glowed until she wormed out of them enough to reply to him face-to-face. "Could've fooled me. Intense was the first word on my mind, and you endured."

Seth lowered his voice and his vocabulary, "It's been a while."

She watched his subtle body language. "Are you totally sure? You said that your trainer's trained Dark forever and this place definitely needs a woman's touch, and nothing gets me hotter than a Fire-type. Me plus here equals synergy for you and me and your brother with crap taste in cats to have a crush on and your master who needs something defensive and street-smart on his team. I don't like showing my hand, but I can talk to him if that's what it'll take."

Seth got up upon the bed, nudged the wad of bedding to roll the umbreon over, and laid himself down beside her. "Our lordship accepted a deerling into our fold. Defensive and street-smart are not amongst his interests."

The umbreon wiggled and kicked the sheets loose, squirming free and resting her head on a pillow stained through its previously removed case with dried blood. "I've spent too much time in this town. Either I conquer some territory, or make off with some booty. Life's too short to spy through your window and wonder if I finally found a home. I like you, Seth; and I'd like for this to work. But if you're sure that it won't, I need to move on."

"I like you, whatever your name is—"

"It's whoever's is most convenient."

"—Indeed. But, speak honestly, if our lordship had selected me as his valet and assigned Brother Cyrus to watch duty, you would have broken in again, convinced him that you meant no harm, regaled him throughout the day, and told him that you liked him after making a final argument for your adoption." Each "him" that he spoke carried a greater emphasis; the fourth was almost a bark, though the rest of his words were at an even volume.

The umbreon rolled over to stand, licked Seth's nose, and flopped down beside and against him. "Of course. Plans must be flexible, but plans must be followed through, too. That doesn't mean I don't like you, though. I think we have a lot more to share. If Cyrus were here instead of you, it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun, and I might have given up early."

"You are a selfish monster."

She giggled and nodded emphatically. "I know. I wasn't when I was an eevee, though. I can't un-evolve, but I would like to be like she was, again, even if only for a moment. I got close, today. Thank you for that, Seth."

"How did you escape this place unnoticed?"

The umbreon stood up and held her head high. "A magician never reveals her secrets. Neither does a thief. I'm going to steal dinner before I go. Oh, does your master have any good, strong needles? The lock-pick I have now is worthless. That's why you heard me at the door."

A pang—the guilt of treachery—coursed through Seth, but then he remembered how imbalanced had been Gates' treatment of his loyal dogs versus the leniency granted to the deerling. "He has some leather tools in the closet. Amongst them are large needles."

She licked his nose again, visited the closet, and sniffed out what she needed.

"Perfect!" she exclaimed, finding one of just the right length and gauge. Needles leapt from a plastic tray to her left paw's pad when she passed it over them. She selected one, bit it alone, slipped it beneath her left paw's fur, and then replaced the others in the case. "There's another option. You can blow this pop stand and come with me. I prefer to work alone, but even on the road, it'd be nice to have somebody warm to curl up with when the sun rises."

Seth rose and perched on the edge of the bed. "No. I am no fool."

The umbreon closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and let glow her rings. "I know. If you'd agreed, I would've called you one. But, I would be happy if I knew a pokemon like you was waiting for me whenever I returned to a hideout. I'll lock up on the way out; you never know what kind of monsters might want to come in."

Long after the umbreon left, Seth remained on the bed, breathing through the resistance of a few layers of bed-sheet. The sheets needed to be washed this morning and doubly so now, but the melange of scents—himself, his lordship, his brother, the deerling, and that bandit—it was an intoxicant and he knew that he would always remember it fondly.

* * *

Little remained: scattered bones, scraps of clothing, and a wallet that—despite having been chewed on—still contained a young trainer's identification card. Collecting that as evidence, this case was closed. Using his T.D., Gates took a few morbid photographs of the scene and its surroundings. The final photograph he snapped captured an army. A number of gravelers blocked the exit, a cluster of zubats hovered above them, and a few quagsires had risen from the mire.

"Cyrus, hold still." Gates quickly dug a few X-items from his bag and an appropriate berry to steel his houndoom against water, expecting the quagsires would attack early since their water was only good against the houndoom and the gravelers would not appreciate it in a melee. "Warden, you got plenty of that green energy left in you?"

Warden hopped and sparked a little. "Ya!"

The quagsires started weaving through the stalagmites; the zubats, the stalactites.

"Here, you need a berry, too. Cyrus, shoot down what bats you can and try not to get killed. Warden, green shit anything but the bats and come back to me whenever you get hurt; if you can't fight, it's three more skeletons in this corner."

The cave dwellers took positions beyond the reach of Warden's flash.

Gates reached into his pack for revive crystals and found a plastic wrapper. Then, two. He then had an idea, whispered a prayer, and unwrapped Max's rare candies. "Warden, your pappy was a big tough buck that could beat any other pokemon in the forest, right?"

Warden, having experimented with using his illumination to push the quagsires away a step and make them re-position, turned his head aside to reply, "Papa a-fa-na pakka-ma."

Gates crouched beside Warden and wrapped him with his right arm, its palm holding two small crystal spheres. "Eat these; please, please evolve; and show me that you inherited his strength."

One of the quagsires managed to have a thought and announced it. The zubats chattered with chirps of such high pitch that Gates hardly noticed and Cyrus cringed. Then, Cyrus recognized a signal and responded to it as immediately as did the enemy. The zubats came down like a curtain. Cyrus mantled one of the broader stalagmites and put all of his power into a heat wave that buffeted them in-flight. He heard his master shout, "Yes!" behind himself, but glancing back, it was not in celebration of his knocking out half of the bats and weakening the others that now struggled to recover from head-first landings into the sides of stone pillars. It was in celebration of Warden's transforming body. Carefully incinerating the zubats that rose to fight on, Cyrus heard the more distant warriors beginning their approach. Hoping that he had bought enough time, Cyrus leapt down. Instead of using the terrain as a firing platform, it now became his cover as Rock- and Water-type attacks launched from the darkness began showering the chamber.

It was an alien sensation for Gates; gazing upon the most magnificent buck that he had ever seen, struck with a strange guilt and a misplaced fear, a combination of a trained impulse to claim a superior trophy and a deep-seated need to somehow protect this particular one from others like himself. A stray pebble hit him in the head and reminded him of their immediate circumstance. "Green for the blue ones, if you run out, kick the gravelers until there's a gap and we'll run for it."

Warden licked the first droplets of blood that emerged from his mentor's forehead before grunting aggressively and taking a familiar stance. "No run. You chose me to win this fight." A rippling glow shimmered all over his pelt and collected near his hooves. With a war cry he sprang toward the darkness. Dashing the tips of the stalagmites, he brought his illumination to the quagsires. They bellowed their complaints, surely that this was not the pokemon they were recruited to battle.

Cyrus yelped and a burst of flame gave away his position. Gates threw a berry toward him with a trained motion that betrayed his youth's obsession. Meanwhile, the remaining zubats proved to be a steady source of harassment, distracting Warden and disrupting his attacks. He responded by bringing the fight with the quagsires up-close, barreling into them and discharging his energy balls point blank. Soon, Cyrus wove around near the wall and found his way back to Gates, sniping with an ember one zubat that plotted an ambush against his master. Seeing their mercenaries nearly wiped out, the gravelers poured into the middle, separating the sawsbuck from the others and aiming to encircle it. Gates pulled a can of lemonade and a small pick-axe from his bag. "Do you still remember rock-smash?" Cyrus barked in affirmation and opened his mouth. Anthony poured. "Get them from behind and hide in the dark when they react. If we take turns, maybe we can pick enough of them off." A loud blast deafened them both: desperation led the gravelers to begin using self-destructive tactics that included casting off their outer layers with violent energies. Warden cried out and clambered across rocks with a limp. His new body's flesh was torn and bleeding in places. "Slight change of plan. You hide on the left, we'll fight together from here. Go, Cyrus." Gates threw his tool like a tomahawk to founder a graveler that came at him from his right. He started maneuvering to recover it, but realizing that he had a clear line of sight, he instead used his pokeball to recall Warden from across the chamber. Re-releasing him and hastily blasting his wounds with a medicinal spray, Gates glanced over Warden's back to watch the faintly illuminated line of gravelers regrouping and preparing to come upon them again.

"Behind me!" Warden asserted as he moved two steps with a turn to stand beside Anthony and let his body absorb successive hails of fractured stone coming from their left.

"I know you're fast enough; can you hit a few, get them busy, and then we can make a break for it?"

When the foremost of the gravelers appeared at the edge of flash's radius, they fired another volley and retreated into the darkness to hide from any counter-attack. It was poorly aimed, but Warden shifted position again to protect his master. "No break. Nourish me. I will win this fight."

Gates popped the top of a lemonade. "This is the last one; don't you dare argue with me again." Warden opened his mouth and aiming the can coarsely Gates crushed it in a haste to fire its fluid down his sawsbuck's throat. Warden's body glowed briefly as he leapt at the belligerents like a pink and brown lightning bolt, moving even faster than before. Beyond Warden's glowing radius, Cyrus coughed a wisp of flame. When the illumination followed Warden and left Gates in darkness, he felt for the wall and shuffled toward the exit. By the time Anthony reached the upward passage, Warden had defeated four gravelers, suffered blasts from two—they joining the piles of unconscious rubble that did so before—and now he danced with three final fighters.

"Warden, we run now!"

Again bloodied and limping, and now having trouble maneuvering about the stalagmites, Warden complained. "No! I win this fight!"

"Warden, that's an order, God damn it… God, damn it, shit!"

Cyrus yelped, having reached the same conclusion as Gates, the man now sloppily grasping for Warden's ball and a second or two later clicking its button rapidly in panic. Warden spat some blood after taking a direct hit from a stone that dazed him and then noticed what the others just saw, although he was not sure about what it warned of: Two of the gravelers were glowing a fierce white after flinging themselves at him with a desperate leap each from the tallest of the nearby stalagmites. Unseen by Warden, the third graveler glowed likewise but was barreling in to roll beneath Warden from his right rear side. Warden glowed too, but red, as his ball de-materialized him. However, his energy form vanished from sight before being drawn in, overwhelmed by bright flashes as the three gravelers exploded; completely, permanently. The force of the combined blast bowled Gates and Cyrus over. Gates fell hard against the stony cave floor. Cyrus recovered his bearings, licked Gates' cheek, bit his arm and tugged it, sat against him, and finally, out of ideas, howled. When Cyrus stopped to breathe, he heard himself howling back, reflected as a chorus but distantly faded.

* * *

Lacking the strength necessary to move toward the light, Gates instead faintly cursed at it. Soon, it was obscured by a figure; a face cast in shadow, but he could smell the breath: astringent. He heard something echo in his mind and rolled his eyes shortly before closing them again for some time. Later, light, and more grumbles. Gates rose from his bed a little and examined the monitor cables stuck to his body. The echo came back, and he understood it this time.

"They said I can't give you any. Drinking alone's bad. Drinking alone with another is worse." Gates looked to his left, where sat in a chair a kadabra with a bottle of vodka. Kit waved the bottle around, letting slosh the last fifth of its contents. "I'll drink for you for your health and for you to go out of my mind."

Feeling at the bandages on his head, Gates slowly spoke, "I'm what?"

"After you abused me, I went to Coroxon. I'm weird. When I drink this stuff I might stop seeing or I might see too much. I saw you get hurt. I had to come or I would see it forever. Why the hell does my soul mate have to be a human? And a jerk about it, too." She took a bold swig; slightly too bold as she coughed a bit of it back into the bottle and a bit onto herself. Checking to his right, Anthony noticed that his other pokemon and his property were all absent. Answering his question as he thought of it, Kit continued, "Your houndoom is good. The other one," she reduced the bottle to a tenth, "he got scrambled."

"What!"

Kit groaned and clutched her head with her free hand. "Not so loud. I'm wasted. It's what I read off of the nurse after she ran the balls; I don't know what it means."

Anthony pressed a call button to summon a nurse, hopefully one in the know. "I guess I need to thank you."

"No, you need to thank me."

He mumbled a confused sound as she walked across the room with deliberately placed steps, set the bottle aside, pulled him up from the bed using telekinesis, and kissed him as squarely as she was cross. Unsure if his action was willful or at her influence, he returned it nonetheless, and when her power no longer supported him and he fell back into his bedding, the moment seemed to have been too brief.

"You're welcome. Look, when I was at the bar I met somebody and we're going to travel together; see if we can find where we belong. Probably it's a bad idea, but we were both drunk at the time. Still am. I am. She, maybe. Whatever. Listen, I saved your life so if I come back, I'm making me your trainer and making you the man I sensed you could've been when we first met, without this bullshit attitude you've picked up. If I don't, I found somebody better that you which shouldn't be hard and you'll never know what you missed, but I'll give you a taste to remember me by."

Gates gasped when, with a touch of her digits against a patch of exposed skin near his forehead's bandage, Kit forced a fragment of somebody else's stolen experience into his mind. It was gone in a blink and so was she and her emptied bottle. He looked around; the quickly fading glow of teleportation being nearly all that she left behind. A nurse entered, and accused Gates of somehow smuggling in and hiding alcohol despite having been unconscious for nearly twenty hours.

* * *

"Guaiacol Gym, home of the Moraine Badge. How may we defeat your pokemon? Hold please."

What else could Anthony do? At least the faint on-hold music was pleasant.

"Loud MacLeod, whatchya need?"

"I need a favor."

Carol took a second, "Uh, new guy? With the little pink thing?"

"Anthony Gates, yeah"—yeah, he hoped—"I had a bad fight with some wilds and they're holding me in the infirmary for observation. I need somebody to reload my dogs' feeder tomorrow. It wasn't full-up when I left."

Silence, before, "Will there be cans there for me to put in it?" Silence, before, "I'll take a six-pack of the cheap stuff out of your wage."

"I hope I can earn it back real soon. Just ask my landlord to let you in. Thank you, Miss MacLeod."

"Think something of it; you owe me a big one. And please, Carol is fine. Save 'Miss MacLeod' for when I have you on the clock and at my command."

Gates hesitated. "Yes, Ma'am."

"Get better." She disconnected on the full stop.

Anthony laid himself down and rested until morning.

* * *

Awakening on his own with a need to micturate and without recollection of his whereabouts, Gates stumbled out of his bed, took care of business, and left his room. He wandered till he found an elevator. Trusting its directory, he descended to a basement level dedicated to the treatment of pokemon. Unlike a center, which specialized in minor injuries and out-patient treatments for men and 'mon alike, this area was specialized for bodily trauma beyond what the rejuvenation machines could re-arrange, and down one hall, something akin to hospice care, for old pokemon to be heavily medicated, spend some time in a peaceful, artificial environment suitable for their species in the wild, and be euthanized in their, final, sleep. Searching for a service desk, he passed a family with a few pokemon among them, all expressing various degrees of grief. Following them when their paths diverged, assuming they knew their way, he came upon a counter and a nurse, and asked about his companions.

"Your houndoom is ready for pick-up," she proclaimed after he identified himself, "but your sawsbuck is still being processed."

"Still? It's been—" a while, although he was not sure of the date.

"Still. See," she sent a copy of Warden's ball log to a slate and held it up, "there's its last center visit, as a deerling. We don't have its pattern as a sawsbuck in the network. So, since its live image was obliterated when you withdrew it, here," she pointed at the final entry on the log, "the ball has to reassemble your pokemon. The good news is that what it puts together might hold together long enough for the body to heal, since the ball does have the last good image data to start with and it was only a few minutes old. The bad news is that a commodity-grade ball chip is trying to solve a hundred-trillion piece jigsaw puzzle. It's going to take time and energy. You can take the ball and let it run, but it can only work on re-assembly with external power because the battery won't last without it. Do you have a hopper at home?"

Gates shook his head and asked, "How long?"

"Until either the ball clicks and goes back to normal mode, or the ball buzzes and ejects the release button cap. Or you can have the ball's control overridden and take a chance by releasing it, although I'd call it fratricide unless everyone is certain that the re-assembly effort isn't making progress anymore."

"I'll take my dog and my suggested two days of bed-rest and come back." The nurse nodded and gave him Cyrus. Riding up the elevator, every time Gates closed his eyes, if only to blink, he saw Warden aglow with flash and agility, his sly and confident smirk having grown with his body, looking back at him. His deerling was brave, fearless, and would never give up in his pursuit of earning the respect of his mentor. The elevator's bell chimed, its doors opened, and Gates returned to his room. He crawled back into bed and made himself comfortable with a reflexive platitude. "He'll be waiting for me when I'm discharged. He won that fight."


	4. Rise Of The Bran Muffins

Eternally Vernal, Chapter 4: Rise Of The Bran Muffins.

* * *

At first they were seen as a generous and unexpected treat. Now, on day eight of a second big favor and day four of fresh-baked bran muffins, they were dreaded as anathema. It was time for Carol to put her tall-leather-boot-clad foot down. "Gates! If you're hoping to change your application to house chef, I'm not looking to fill that position." As she passed by the break room hopper, she noticed that Warden's ball again rested within it. A sticky note affixed read, "Please put me back when you're done. I keep the seat warm." It was "signed" with a very crude drawing of a sawsbuck's head, antlers in full bloom. She continued into a somewhat hidden alcove containing the prep space and shoved Gates' left shoulder. "More muffins, really?"

"Don't ask," he muttered as his eyes shifted leftward. She glared at him till they shifted back to the timer he had just set. "Childhood trauma."

Carol stepped back a bit and glanced over her shoulder at the rejuvenation machine. "I've cut you all the slack I can and then some. Look, I've lost a pokemon, too; two. When you go into the wild, you're taking a risk. That's why we make them fight, so they will find their inner strength; and why they fight for us, because we give their lives a mission—one way or another."

Gates watched the oven timer click down to nineteen minutes. "I should've recalled him right away."

"I guess the rest of the details are coming back?"

He raised his right hand and gestured flippantly at his forehead with his fingertips. "Most of 'em have. Banging your head against a rock does a hell of a number."

"Having a rock banged against your head is worse. Well, what did you do instead?"

"I asked him to come back to me."

Carol's brow furrowed. "He didn't want to come back to you?"

"He wanted to come back to me in triumph. I wanted him to obey my command. We disappointed each other."

The door opened and an established house trainer stomped over to the hopper. Annoyed by its hopeless occupant's ever-presence, he threw Warden's ball long toward a rubbish bin in a distant corner. Then, Carol grabbed onto Gates' left arm and made faint squeaking sounds: One, from the friction between her being-dragged-along boots and the floor. Second, a meek vocalization begging him to stop walking. The next sound was that of a cold-cocked gentleman falling to the floor. Carol released Gates' non-punching arm and looked alternatively at the two men. With a similarly careless action, Gates stripped away his magnetically-affixed nameplate and threw it at the same bin, hitting its metal flap squarely-centered and with enough momentum to put a dent in it and to break the tag's plastic into two. He traced an approximation of Warden's ball's path to recover it, and—her having followed closely behind—faced MacLeod when he turned about.

"Anthony, please, calm down and listen to reason. He was a cute little thing, but it's time to let him go."

She yelped a little as he snatched her left hand and pressed the ball against her palm. "Feel that? It's still warm. It hasn't popped the cap yet. The ball hasn't given up, Warden hasn't given up, I'm not giving up."

"Anth—" Carol started as Gates, with Warden in-hand, passed her by.

The fellow began rising from the floor as Anthony neared the door. Mostly to his feet, stabilized by one hand on a table, he heard, shouted at him, "You fell down some stairs and if you have a problem with that and bitch to the fuzz, when I get out of district hold I promise I'll throw you down a few flights of them!" Gates swung the door violently and exited without explaining how he intended to arrange such a circumstance. The gym leader turned off the oven before approaching her remaining employee. Rubbing his bruise, the employee grumbled to her, "I told you there was something wrong with that guy."

"Yes. I'm sorry I kept him around. And, I'm sorry, but you're fired, too. I have no place for anyone who treats a pokemon like trash, and I'll be sure to let the police know what you did to make him need to fight you to protect his pokemon if they come asking."

"I can't believe you're taking his side." He took a deep breath. "Actually, I can." He slapped his nameplate upon the table and cleaned out his locker.

Carol leaned against the counter beside the rejuvenation machine after the room became empty of all but herself. Withdrawing her trainer's device, she made a call on pretense. "Yeah, one of my machines is acting funny. Could you send a full report of all transaction data for the last ten days? If I said 'pretty please,' would you do it? Okay, but just this once. What's your private contact?" She and her T.D. hid in the alcove for a brief moment. When she returned to her office, a printout awaited her. Browsing over it, she noticed a pattern in its entries.

* * *

Aside from a depressive funk that hung heavily like a fog localized about his lordship, home felt like Home to Seth. Just the three of them. Just the three. Cyrus was not buying that, of course. Seth could not not-notice and Cyrus had the more experienced nose of their two. Another advantage of living in a Warden-less world: No risk of him overhearing anything and tattling to their master. Once Cyrus had informed Seth of that particular speech T.M. development, the latter accepted his brother's offer to spill his guts in a safe harbor, in case Warden may be recovered at any moment. During the days that followed his return from the hospital, Gates had completely ignored the intermittent vocalizations exchanged between his houndooms and a few other clues that interesting things happened during his absence; his mind was elsewhere, often wandering off to recover stray bits of memories of what had happened in the cave. Tonight, he lay crashed on his couch, rolling Warden's ball around in a small circle upon his chest. It had gone cold long ago; unable to labor without steady power, it had fallen back into its normal stasis mode and its only warmth was stolen from Anthony's palm. The television was on but its sound, not. Something about the flickering colors in the corner of his eye usefully distracted him and slowed his thoughts enough to blunt them.

No money. No job. No deerling.

Well, not a deerling anymore. Gates closed his eyes. He saw in his mind Warden as he was every time the little pink bastard glanced at him with that look on his face. Even inside the cave in his greater form, that look. That look. "Bastard!" Gates launched himself from the couch and across the room as though a bee in the cushion had stung his ass. He fumbled a wad of garbage stuffed in one pocket of his wallet until he found Mister Syfax's spent card filling a spot where money was supposed to live. He swiped it through his T.D. and hesitated with his thumb over the button. No, Maximilian was not to be solicited for a favor. Yes, Warden was worth it. Anthony had no choice; he had to—figure out why his houndooms had just charged the door. Both sniffed at the gap the instant a knocking began and they responded by dropping their guard. They communicated while Gates walked over to answer it.

"I'm not doing you any more favors. But," Carol bobbed her head as an expression of irritation made overly dramatic as though she were still a teenager, "he's too cute and spunky to let die. Gangway!" She marched past him carrying a large metal case. After quickly forming her first impression—as she conversationally described it, a, "Quaint place you've got here"—she slammed the case onto Gates' coffee table and swept away surface clutter before opening it. "Find a socket for this plug," she ordered while unreeling a retractable cable, "This box has a dead battery so it needs a mains line even if this were a quick fix."

Gates jammed the plug into a large power strip that supported his entertainment center. "You're doing me a favor, anyway. You stopped me from doing something drastic."

Carol tried to look around again, hopefully inconspicuously, for something like a loaded pistol laying about. With a chuckle, Gates gave her a glimpse of his T.D.'s display, still on its ready-to-call screen.

She recoiled. "Ewww! I met that guy once at League headquarters when my application to run the gym went through. He's a total creep."

"That's what I thought at first," he handed her Warden's ball, "but then I got to know him. That's just the tip of the iceberg. He's gotta be a sociopath."

"Whatever you say, dude who hit his head and thinks he's a psychiatrist. Okay, let's hope this works so you won't have to push that button." She closed the machine's switch. "Here's the deal. I pulled a string and got the logs for the gym machine so I could check the details on Warden's scrambled, fragmentationed, whatever, getting fixed process. It was about sixty per cent when I let you put him in, and over the first two days, it got up to the eighties, then it stopped. It was still running but it wasn't getting better overnight. Then you came in for pick-up work and started making muffins, and, and I think this is the thing, you were talking to yourself, talking to him, while you were in the kitchen. Every day, mid-day, muffin time, the image integrity improved a few points. So, here." Her machine now charged and indicating readiness, she tapped a button—its power indicator light began burning amber—and, gripping its case, turned it around. Sliding it to the edge of the coffee table toward Gates, sitting in a spare chair nearby, she demanded that he, "Talk to him."

Gates blushed. "I—ugh, gah. I don't know what to say."

"Liar."

"I can't. You'll, they'll hear," he gestured roughly at where he thought his dogs were resting and switched to a whisper, "I didn't know anyone heard me talking to him in the lounge."

"Either it was making the muffins, which I doubt, or you talking, which I suspect, or it was coincidence, and you have nothing to lose. Let him hear your voice. Talk with me, at least. I can't leave this machine; in fact, policy is I can't take it out of the gym except for emergencies, so I'm stuck here for as long as it takes. Don't make me sit here and stare at you being too embarrassed to tell your deerling that somewhere along the line you stopped taking care of him because you felt guilty and started taking care of him because you fell in love with him."

Anthony struggled to maintain his composure. "Oh, did I, you think? I love my dogs. They've always been loyal to me and they've always given me their all when it counted. And more than that, it's because they want to be where they belong; we're a pack, sorta thing. Warden—he followed me home only because I took from him the one thing he needed, a father whom he could trust to give him an approving nod to confirm that he did his best. He's just using me to fill that hole in his life. That's why he wouldn't quit. He didn't want to win my approval with a close-enough." Gates sat silently for a minute, although to him it was no different than if he were repeating what he had just said, to himself, at himself, with a few words changed. His own voice in his mind made a point. Hoping to mask any visible emotional response with an overt opposite, he leaned over Warden's ball and shouted. "Fine! You've shown me what your all can do and you've won my approval! Now, pull yourself together; god dammit! For years I've wanted a—I can't have—I ne—I want you. To; come back to me, Warden. Come back to me. God dammit." Gates fell back into his chair, propped his elbows on his knees, interwove his fingers, and used them to support his chin after he soon leaned forward again to stare at the hopper. Another minute of silence later, he sweetened the deal. "And I'll let you sleep on my bed. Even though you're about too big for it, now." He muttered something more under his breath.

Carol, gazing at a simple display embedded in the case, noticed one of its indicators click from ninety-two to ninety-three per cent.

Gates rose to excuse his turning and stepping away to face an non-judgmental wall. "I can't talk about this anymore. What do you want to talk about?"

She monitored the monitor. "Anything. As long as it'll keep your deer interested, I guess it'll work."

Anthony began to pace about aimlessly. "Name something."

"Anything?"

"Anything else."

Carol turned to lay across Gates' couch. "Alright, old man. Is this what you wanted?"

"Pardon?"

She raised her arms. "This. A two-and-a-half room, three-quarter-kitchen apartment just north enough of the prime real estate to keep the tourists and premium rent costs away, living alone with two dogs, a deer, and probably a dozen dirty magazines stuffed beneath these cushions."

"There aren't any."

"I feel some sort of a lump. Should I peek?"

"Whatever's down there is probably worse. The dogs spend four times as much time on that couch than I do."

Carol squirmed a little. "We'd better leave it alone, then. My question stands."

Still, as Anthony now became. "No. What I wanted was to be the best there ever was, but after badge number four I realized that I wasn't ever gonna be, and after badge five, that I liked spending time in the woods more than I did training. So, I found other trainers for my team and got a job as a ranger for a few years; liked the job and the company, hated the paperwork, so I said 'goodbye' to my partner, came back to town, and got along one way or another."

She took a deep breath and held it conspicuously while their conversation died.

Sitting again, Gates revived it. "Is this what you wanted?"

With a sarcastic inflection, she replied, "Pardon?"

"To be a gym leader. I've heard it's a curse enough times to start believing it."

She began by drawing another deep breath, but this time she put it to words. "Grandma ran it, dad ran it, I run it. It's okay. I traveled the whole region twice over before dad got bad. I did kinda want to try for some overseas titles. Maybe after I find someone to sire me a kid so I can pass the gym on and get back to having fun—I hear Mount Silver's a fun climb in the winter. Our mountains are boring; anybody can make it up as long as you can handle a few bears and a horde of starving sneasels along the way."

"Are you really that anxious to start a family?"

She fussed and scraped some dirt from beneath a fingernail. "No. God, no. It's creepy to think about. You get this creature inside you that drinks your blood, makes you throw up in the mornings, gets all big and heavy, it punts your bladder for fun, and when it's good and ready it explodes out of ya' not caring a whit about what gets torn up on the way out. Seems kinda selfish."

"Is that how your mom felt about it?"

"I don't know," she answered abruptly while glancing at the display—ninety-four—and swinging herself around to rise from the couch. Down the hall she walked and into the bathroom she vanished. Gates reached across and placed his palm on the ball in its cradle. He felt a faint but intense vibration as it operated, and after a moment sensed a strange sensation as though his hand were tingling. He lifted his hand away. It was warm.

A moment later, his trainer's device chimed. Activating it, "Hey, are you still nursing that fawn?" he heard, along with some highway noise.

"Not exactly, Vel. He's evolved, but he's kinda… on the mend."

"Then put some tape across his dangling bits because we'll need him on this job."

"What's this 'we'?"

"It's an honest job; some socialite lost track of her pokemon at one of those villas near Palmitoy Cove. Bring it back, earn big bucks. I got to thinking, who's near Palmitoy and knows about big bucks?" Gates sat long enough for Carlos to call out, asking if he were still present.

"Let me think about it. I might be busy this week."

"Think fast, we're there tomorrow. I'll be holed up at the mote' overnight, and the appointment's early enough to matter."

Carol's voice came through the hallway. "Are you talking to Warden like you're supposed to be?"

Carol's voice came through the T.D. one way, and then, Carlos's the other. "You dog! I knew you had something going on."

"Goodnight," Gates growled. Abruptly disconnected, Carlos assumed the click to be an agreement.

"A friend of yours?" Carol asked as she reclaimed her position on the couch.

"Occasionally an accomplice, occasionally a coworker, never a friend. We both train houndooms and we both do a little poa—odd job here and there."

"Pod jobs? Is that what you guys call it, now? I wonder if I've crossed your friend. I've ordered a few rock-slides against guys with houndooms doing the kind of odd jobs that sometimes require an accomplice."

"This one's straight and narrow. Lost pet reward. Now that I'm unemployed, it's a simple decision. But," he shifted his attention, "I can't do it without Warden so he needs to hurry up and get fixed."

Carol scolded him playfully. "He's doing his best," she shifted her attention to the warm ball, "aren't you?" Still ninety-four. "Why not go without him, though? I mean, pretend I broke all of the rules that are left and let you have the box here and keep him running in it while you're off taking money to do good deeds like that silly import show that Fire-types can't get enough of."

"With the rude mohawk guy?"

She hummed.

"It's the only thing on that those two agree on watching without surfing during the ad spots."

"Figures. Why couldn't you go without Warden?"

"We could. Velasquez's bitch is a pretty good tracker. She can lose a faint trail that Cyrus can hold, but she catches things that my dogs run right over. I wouldn't mind adding one from her bloodline if I could."

"Is that why he's not a friend? Because he wouldn't let you put one of your two and her together, or she turned them down?"

"He's not a friend because of other reasons. About that, though, he had her on the shot for a while. There's a rumor that sometimes the hormone change can ruin a 'doom bitch's nose when bred. I think it's like, one in ten at worst, but he didn't want to risk it. I guess I could ask him again, since I'm doing him a favor here."

"Without Warden?"

"Oh, yeah. Two things why not. One, Warden's Grass-typing. You train Rock and Ground; you know that Palmitoy's no place to be Water-weak. Two, because there's so much water, any trails are going to be broken up. Sure, three noses are already better than one, but—I don't know how good a sawsbuck's nose is for tracking, but I know the wind will make or break a hunt for one. If he's got a different kind of sense, it could help. So without Warden, aside from our company, my dogs and I aren't helping much but giving a second opinion and being able to cover a little more ground, faster."

Ninety-five. Carol asked Gates if he had anything to drink, and commented after he went to the kitchenette, "You should catch something Water-adept and bring it home. Maybe, after a few years of intense training, there might be a chance of you getting my badge." She watched him as he opened his refrigerator door. "Yeah, grab those."

"Those?"

"That cheap beer you've got; there's not much else in there."

He retrieved two glass bottles. "What good would getting your badge do me? I'm not aiming for the League."

Carol withdrew a pocket knife with an opening tool and applied it as soon as she received a bottle from Gates. "It'd pad your résumé, and look a litt—what the hell?" She read the label. "Sars-appa—"

"Sar-sapa-rilla."

"No alcohol content. What a waste of a glass bottle. I may currently be your ex-boss, but if you patronized me like this at work I'd throw you out and revoke your membership for it." She took a swig anyway.

"Currently?"

Her left cheek twitched as the fluid's flavors played upon her palate. "You're fired, not banished. You didn't have your dogs burn up your member card, did you?"

Gates wrenched off the cap of his bottle. "Honestly, I was thinking—ugh, shit. Have you ever had one of those urges to go into the lion's den just to get it over with, even though there ain't anything to get over? I was thinking about getting back into the ranger game."

"The Mount Buchu thing?"

"Sorta. I like the chase. That's why I train houndooms and take jobs tracking things in the forest. And why I haven't bought butcher meat at a store in a decade."

"Specifically from a butcher? It's easy to have a record like that if you don't count fast-food."

"I can't count it. That's not a meal; that's stuff's just for pacifying hunger until I can get a pound of prime-cut pokemon in the pan. You've harvested the wilds, haven't you?"

She took another swig, the action to cover a slight blush. "A few Flying-types. Order a stone-edge, bring a pidgey down, you're fed."

Gates chuckled. "Honestly, I've never wasted my time on first-form squabs. How was it?"

"Tasted like chicken."

"Figures. The best meat is young but fully evolved. That's why Tauros is a star in the market. Hatch 'em, fatten 'em up just a little, and as soon as you've got replacement eggs, dinner is served."

Still ninety-five. "What do you think about sawsbuck?"

"Best kept secret off the menu. I wouldn't save up for a license every time they issue if it wasn't worth it."

"What do you think about your sawsbuck?"

"I think—I think I bagged a prize. If I saw him in the wild, I'd take a shot at him, license or no. But, it'd be bittersweet; he'd be too damn tough for good eating. I know some guys who would drop a heap of cash on me to let them have him for a standing mount, though."

"How much is a heap?"

"Just guessing, a buck like him done up right as a standing mount would be fifteen-hundred, maybe two-thousand pounds, retail."

Her eyes sparkled. "Tony, skip being a ranger and get into taxidermy!"

"No. To hell with the show-offs. I hunt to eat, I hunt for pride, I hunt for the thrill. I don't hunt so some pinhead can invite other pinheads to his villa and look at the stuffed buck in his study, filled with books he bought and shelved to fill space and make him look studious."

"I appreciate your philosophy, but Warden can't eat it. How are you going to keep your sawsbuck's bigger belly fed in this town? There ain't much graze land on this side of Main Street."

Gates sat, pondered, and relaxed. "Ranger service it is. The forest is where he belongs. I never liked this place, anyway. The bathroom's too small."

MacLeod placed her bottle on the table beside the machine. Ninety-six. "I don't like this place, either. No offense intended, but it smells like despair in here."

"I can make it smell like spaghetti if you prefer. Or bran muffins."

Carol cringed and glanced at Anthony through a furrowed brow. "Do your pokemon like bran muffins?"

"I don't know. I haven't made any in years."

"You're shitting me."

Gates pushed ahead. "I guess I could get us some fast-food, to pacify our hunger, before they all close."

Carol hummed dismissively and relaxed after nodding, closing her eyes. Listening intently, she kept track of his motions as he rose, found his billfold, quite possibly fished some notes out of what sounded like a cookie jar, took his keys, called for Seth's company, and departed. Now alone, except for the other houndoom resting in another room, she leaned up and over the machine. "Hey, Warden. It's Carol. Listen. I'm sorry that I told Tony he should give up on you. I just didn't want him to lose his marbles from being unable to let go. I don't know what it's like in there or what you're going through; that might be impossible. But, whatever you're doing or the ball's doing to fix you, you're almost done, so… don't give up. I'll—I'll be honest, I liked watching your fights. Even though you got clobbered most of the time, you looked good, hit hard, and always left them reeling, and that's something for a little guy. I'd like to see you in my ring again, even though you'll think it got a little smaller since last time. And, you can have pink spots and flowers and whatever else you like. Just pull through, okay? None of that stuck forever at ninety-nine per cent crap. You know Tony can't take that sort of thing." She stared at the display, which lay unchanged except for a ticking clock that counted off each passing second.

* * *

Adrift. Upended. Twisting again. Too hard. Lost one. Come about. There! Reclaimed. Integrating. No, back, twisting again. That's better. Settle down. Sinking further. Find the rail. Loosen, coil, tension, release, and upward, upward, toward the light, the lights so many, the lights only one, the lights that guide, the lights that shine, the lights that cast the shadows. The shadows so few now. Find the shadows. Find the pieces. Feel. Compress. The seams. The holes. Fill them relentlessly. Find the pieces. Find the shadows. Fill the holes. Straighten the seams.

A glimmer in the darkness.

Nothing to kick. Sink again. Watch the light. The light that guides. The light that finds. Only it can reveal. Focus. So deep. So dark. Fading, fading, and gone again. Tense. Don't look away. Don't lose the line. Don't waste more time. It's all running out. The fluid is cooling. The basin is warming. The humming is fading. Find the rail. Loosen, coil, tension, release, and upward, upward, toward the light, toward the shadow. There, adrift. Upend, twist, not hard enough. Thrash, kick, cry out with lungs stuffed taut with the same aether in which you glide. There! Reclaimed. Integrating. The pain there is dulled, the pain elsewhere is sharpened. Find the shadows. Find the pieces.

A dull, faint tremor in the aether. Only the lowest vibrations carry through, but carry they do. "Ninety-seven," it spake.

That's better. Settle down. Sinking further. Find the rail. Loosen, coil, tension, release, and upward, upward, toward the light, the lights so many, the lights only one, the lights that guide, the lights that shine, the lights that cast the shadows. The shadows so few now. Find the shadows. Find the pieces. Feel. Compress. The seams. The holes. Fill them relentlessly. Find the pieces. Find the shadows. Fill the holes, however. Stitch the seams, somehow.

* * *

"Because it's polite," she said. And so, Anthony returned to the kitchen yet again, this time to get a fork. A fork for fried potato wedges. He returned, handed the tool to Carol, and knelt beside the coffee table and the mobile rejuvenation device gently humming away upon it. As he reached for and consumed a wedge of his own using his fingers, she glared at him.

"I'm not a polite man," he proclaimed with his mouth full. "That's why I live alone." Although that was not why, such an attitude suggested another possible cause.

Skewering a wedge with the fork, she waved it gently in a circle. "You don't live alone." She bit into it.

Gates glanced aside. "I got a little something for them, too, but they wait their turn. It's a pack order sort of thing I heard about. If you start 'em eating first and then you start, it looks like they've got a higher rank."

"I didn't think the dogs were giving you any obedience problems. How about the other one?" She pointed at Warden's ball with a half-eaten wedge.

"He's a carnivore and a thief."

"You're a carnivore and a poacher. Is that slight difference why you didn't get him anything?" Carol asked.

"I didn't get him anything because—well, first of all he has to get right and out of his ball."

"And second?"

Gates cleared his throat. "And that's none of your concern."

Carol swallowed a laugh. "Touchy, touchy. That's okay, I'm pretty sure I've got your number already." She sipped from her drink. "But let's assume I'm wrong. Then, do you think that not including him will make him more obedient?"

"What'd-ya mean by that?" He again spoke with his mouth full.

"You got all this food, and didn't invite Warden to join you, or even the dogs. It's almost as if you changed your mind about wanting him out and okay." She glanced at the display; aside from the clock it remained static.

"If it were that easy, I wouldn't be worried. I think it's in his blood; this attitude like he's got something to prove and that it's better to get smashed and show he actually ain't up to snuff than to let a chance to show off pass by. When I first took him in for a medical clearance, he got into a fight with some exotic bird on the center's front lawn. The bird was squawking like it wanted the fight, but now I'm thinking Warden called him out. I don't know, it's—he's a buck. He was born to charge head-long and antlers first into anything that seems like a threat. But, that ain't always the right way. If he doesn't learn how strategy works, I'm gonna wind up keeping him in that ball more often than not. Locked, since I've seen him force it open a couple of times already. That ain't no life."

Carol wadded up some food packaging and tucked it into a sack. "Is this?"

Gates thought about her question. He thought about its answer. He thought about his reply. He spoke no words, and thus said everything.

* * *

A few hours later, Anthony, Carol, Cyrus, and Seth each awoke with a start at a discordant tone emitted by the device on the coffee table. As they roused, it ejected a small card. Carol took it up and read it aloud. "Operation complete. Corrected 19,181,252 error(s) in image pattern. Ignored anomalies: 53,525. Physical examination advised." She then ground one palm against her right orbital bones while flicking the card toward Anthony with her left hand. "Alright, time for a trip."

Gates glanced at the card, saw big numbers on it, and gave it to Seth with a gestured disposal order. "Trip?"

She perched Warden's ball upon the mouth of an emptied bottle and closed up the device as it was when she arrived. "It's pokecenter time. Anomalies usually don't mean much, like a chipped tooth that wasn't fixed for want of spare calcium, but fifty thousand—either it's nothing and he'll just be sore through and through when you let him out, or—" she huffed and walked toward the door, "look, have med staff around when you let him out."

Cyrus and Seth leaned against Gates' legs soon after his door shut behind MacLeod. They whimpered a little in their voice's varied timbres, Seth a little more, because he had hoped that she would be staying the night and causing better meals in perpetuity. Gates petted them gently for a moment. "He's not out of the woods yet, boys, but like hell I could keep him in the woods when I wanted it."

Gates stood and slipped on a pair of loafers. "You two can split the last of what's in that bag and get some rest. I can sleep on the drive and let Carlos do the talking, but you two need to be in top form for work tomorrow." Cyrus brought Warden's ball to his master. "And Warden will be in whatever condition he'll be in." Anthony palmed the ball in his right hand and brought the back of that hand near his mouth. "He's never called in sick before."

Throughout the walk to Guaiacol Pokecenter, Gates rubbed the locking ring of Warden's ball. With a circular motion, he spun it, locked, unlocked, locked, unlocked, locked, unlocked… the rhythm came into synchronization with his gait as he considered the possibilities. Most pessimistic, the ball activates and a red beam releases a sawsbuck-shaped lump of disorganized organic matter that gravity then pulls downward, creating a slowly spreading blob for a janitor to shovel into a yellow plastic bucket; later, to scatter skitty litter over the wet spot. Most optimistic, the sawsbuck-shaped form bounds across the room, knocks him to the ground, and licks his face for half of a minute. Locked, unlocked, locked, unlocked. If the last-good image data was enough to fill the gaps, he would probably be in the condition he was when withdrawn across the battlefield—battered, bruised, and bleeding from cuts and gashes all over his body. His wounds numbered fewer than fifty thousand, but maybe that was much of it, of the numbered damages that the machine endeavored not to repair. Locked, unlocked. What if even only one of those errors ruined a major organ? Or, if the ball failed to re-assemble him properly and just stuck parts together? Even alive, Warden may be destined for a calm garden at a refuge, pending a merciful execution. Gates looked to the sky and cursed, "All I wanted was a good dinner, dammit!"

Locked, unlocked, locked, unlocked. He did not notice himself entering Guaiacol Pokecenter until he was well within its lobby.

Gates related Warden's story to a desk nurse. She gave Warden another rejuvenation cycle, now in their machine. Making funny faces while reading all of the messages appearing on her terminal, she did not notice Anthony's staring at her, awaiting news. She told him no details before picking up a handset and calling an administrator at home. When she addressed Gates, she was obviously off-script. "Uh, okay, the ball seems to be live and says its data passes its check, but our system thinks it's all kinds of crazy, so I called the manager and he's going to come down and we'll see what happens. If you'll take a seat—"

Part of an hour later, a manager entered with a weary expression that lightened slightly when he saw that the man responsible for his summoning looked equally weary with an added dash of concerned. Mister Harrison led Gates down a long hallway and down a long staircase. Together they entered a special room with a large observation window viewing another room. It had padded surfaces, including the floor, which also featured a drain. "Place the ball in that little socket and press the button. It will go through the wall and be triggered to release its contents, and if nothing strange happens, we'll go in and investigate your pokemon's condition." Doing as he was instructed, Gates weakly bit his tongue upon touching the button. The ball in its socket shifted through the mechanism to be exposed in the other room and activated. Its red scanning beam fired throughout the chamber for three seconds before calculating a target position near the twelve-foot high ceiling. Then, as though there were no such thing as anomalies, an energetic form appeared and solidified.

Gates rushed out of the observation room in favor of the room observed. Mister Harrison locked the latter's door behind Gates, just to be safe.

"Warden! Warden!" Gates shouted as he stumbled across the mats and once more, falling to his knees. He lifted his sawsbuck's head and then cradled it in his palms, using a thumb to gently pull downward an eyelid. The eye was there, but unresponsive. Letting Warden's head rest upon his kneeling knees, he shifted his grip to sparsely flowered antlers, and leaned over to speak against the top of his skull, "God, Warden, you gotta wake up. You didn't put me through all this shit you've put me through just to die like this."

Anthony felt a sudden jerk, as a couple hundred pounds of muscle suddenly tensed. Warden raised his head and raised Anthony with him for a moment before his master slipped away and fell to the mat. The sawsbuck coughed, gulped, tried to stand, failed, landed on his side, and sneezed so violently that some bloody matter blasted against the nearest wall and all the flowery buds on his antlers somehow erupted into fullest possible bloom. Serving first as extra muscle and second as a counterweight, Gates helped Warden stand balanced on his hooves while Harrison permitted entry of a nurse and a chansey. Carefully taking one step at a time, they guided Warden out of the padded room. Left alone, Harrison went to a nearby supply closet and returned to the padded room to collect a sample before summoning the janitor.

Standing still was a struggle for Warden, because slowly moving his head with a bobbing motion seemed to suppress the nausea that gripped him. However, his x-ray pictures required a fixed pose. Once they were done, he delighted in resting on the floor quietly. Gates was gripped not by nausea but a suspicion that word had gotten out. It was long past midnight, and every minute it seemed like somebody new appeared in the halls to check out the strange case under investigation.

"Can I take him home?" Gates asked of somebody dressed in a medical fashion as he ran his fingers along Warden's neck.

"We'd much rather keep him here for observation till our investigation—"

"Warden is not your science fair project. He's my pokemon and I want to put him to bed."

The doctor intended to contest, but Harrison intervened. "Mister Gates, your Warden is something of a unique case. There have been similar incidents, but none with such a disrupted image have recovered so well. It's something that pokemon researchers will be interested in for years to come. But, we have all the information we need tonight, and—" the doctor tried to interrupt, but was immediately silenced by Harrison's glare, "—and since we've found no life-threatening issues, it will be best that Warden rest wherever it feels most comfortable."

"Thank you, Sir," Gates respectfully, if quietly, replied.

"Take five to get it on its feet again, and on your way out, we'll have a report for you regarding our immediate findings." Harrison shooed away the gathered staff members in the room and hallway.

Gates knelt beside Warden again and scratched around his ears. They twitched chaotically. "We're supposed to be doing a job tomorrow, but since you're not going to feel up—"

Warden grunted and, after a few brief setbacks, stood on his own. His stance was his battle-ready, although he faced no visible foe. He spoke as though each syllable hurt: "Home, bed, sleep, job."

Although the clatter of gentle applause and occasional hollers sounded more like a cacophony in his addled head, Warden showed no weakness as he steadily emerged into the pokecenter lobby. A nurse brought Gates a still-warm printed report which he unceremoniously rolled up and gripped in his left fist as he guided Warden to the door. Harrison called out behind them, "Come again soon. I'm expecting frequent check-ups until we're sure he's alright."

Gates waved with the rolled report, "Fair enough."

* * *

Locked, unlocked, locked, unlocked. The timing was off because of their slow pace, but Gates did not want to pressure Warden. "We're alone. I don't even have the dogs on my belt. You've got nobody to impress; no saving face. It's just you and me. Tell me straight, if you can: how bad is it?"

Warden stopped walking and tensed up. "I… can. It, I see, I can't see what I see. Just one thing." He began walking again; Gates kept pace. "All of me, I feel, different. I feel more. Before, I licked you, I felt licking you. Now," Warden demonstrated, "I feel licking you, I feel my tongue, I feel my jaw, I feel my neck, I feel my—all of me."

"Does it hurt?"

"I woke up and you were there and all of me hurt, but, it's not pain. It's just, feeling. It's different now. It's still changing. I'm—" Warden licked him again—"finding which part of me feels where. I like it."

"Since you like it, once in a while is okay, but don't make my cheek your salt lick." Gates scratched Warden beneath his chin, along his neck again, about his shoulders; "Is this helping?"

Warden staggered a bit, grunted a chuckle, and sped up a little. "Yes. I feel it everywhere but it's more where it's at when you rub it a lot. Mentor, I don't like being out here. I want to feel all of me in our bed."

Gates refrained. "I guess you were listening to me the whole time."

Warden replied, "Of course," but carelessly spoke in terms fit for his previous, not his current, mentor's ears. Focused on his goal, Warden had been speeding up and building a lead, but he stopped at the end of the block. "Which way? Mentor?" he asked shyly.

"We've gone this way before. Have you forgotten? Are you forgetting anything else?" Gates' mind flew to imagining what beyond Warden's sense of touch could be mixed-up.

"Why is the sky dark? Not again…" Warden shook his head and suddenly half-collapsed, but recovered before falling to the sidewalk, not so much by finding his footing but kicking about as though his hooves were sinking through.

"Warden?" Gates gripped his sawsbuck as though he could help. "It's dark because—it's like, almost two in the morning."

"Morning? No, morning is bright. In the morning, I can see him. I can see Mentor, and the sky, and…"

Gates struggled to restrain Warden as he lurched forward by scraping his fore-hooves against the sidewalk in a way that could throw him into a sign or into the road. "It's still night, but morning is coming, and you can see me and the sky in the morning after you sleep."

"Not you, him." Thankfully, Warden steadied his legs.

Gates wondered, "Him? Oh. I might have a picture of him," albeit one of him soon to be gutted and hanging from a tree.

"Not now, then. Now, I see you. Help me, Mentor, like Mentor did." Warden lowered his head, nearly touching the concrete with his nose, "Help me up."

Gates placed his hand on Warden's neck, and felt an instinctive impulse to grip the flesh of his nape and to pull upward after moving to stand before him. Warden stared forward, centering Anthony in his narrow field of binocular vision. "Follow me home, Warden; sleep in our bed until it is morning and bright. You will be okay."

Warden grunted an acknowledgment and walked directly behind Gates for half of their way home. More than once, he prodded Gates' lower left side with his right antler. That behavior stopped when Gates realized what Warden was trying to do, and stopping for a moment, stepped back to drape his left arm over his sawsbuck's back. Even though Warden could never again be carried along this way by his mentor, and the relative size of that arm was now much smaller, it gave Warden a desperately needed sense of comfort and safety.


	5. Basal Basin

Eternally Vernal, Chapter 5: Basal Basin.

* * *

Gates stood in his kitchen and examined the devastation that surrounded him. What few items had populated the refrigerator were now gone. The dogs' feeder, activated until empty. With a growl against a window pane, Seth reported acquisition of his target and stood aside to let his lordship confirm: Warden had figured out how to open the door and ultimately go down to the building's rear yard and eat fruit from the landlord's tree. Unsatisfied with death-by-manager as the cause of Warden's demise after his pulling through a triple explosion in a plasma-like state, Gates opened his door and ordered Seth to bring the sawsbuck back inside. Hearing his trainer's device's alert tone and assuming it to be Carlos sending a warning of his imminent arrival, Anthony quickly shod himself and staged a small kit. Rolling up Warden's medical report and about to stuff it into a pocket of his pack, he instead brought it across Warden's snout upon his re-entering the apartment behind Seth. "Bad buck! You know better: no stealing each other's food, no leaving without permission, and no getting anywhere near the landlord's landscaping. He probably counts those fruit. You might wind up stuffed, yet."

"I want food, Mentor," replied Warden, without any hint of remorse.

"So do I. So does Cyrus and Seth, but Somebody cleaned us out."

Warden angled his antlers toward the kitchen. "Then, I needed food. Now, I want food."

A familiar horn blast sounded outside. "I'll twist Vel's arm to buy us breakfast, and next time… hey! look at me, next time you ask, and you appreciate what you're allowed; got me?"

"I didn't want to ruin your sleep. I got up carefully so—"

"Do you understand?"

Warden's ears lowered, as did his gaze. "Yes, Mentor."

The horn sounded again. "Alright, let's roll." Gates recalled Cyrus into his ball, then Seth into his own. Third, Gates activated Warden's ball. Its scanning beam flashed, flickered, and scanned again. Then, it emitted a buzz and its button cap, which sprang forward and bounced off of Warden's nose. Turning the ball to look at it accusingly, "—the hell?" Gates asked rhetorically before re-clipping it. "You'll ride in the back." Warden backed up into the hallway and permitted his mentor's exit.

They came into view of the vehicle just as Velasquez hopped out of it, intending to beat on a door and speak in elevated tones. "About time. You had all morn—is that the little pink cutlet you brought home from the Allylidenes?"

Shimmering with a spell's effect, Warden crossed the lawn like a flash and bounded into the truck's bed, rocking it sharply as its left wall caught the sawsbuck and all of his momentum. The truck's suspension only barely passed the test.

Beneath morning sunlight, with eyes rubbed clear Gates noticed that the places where Warden was wounded in the cave before treatment were now clearly marked by pink fur patches amongst a field of sawsbuck brown. "It's what I made of him, sorta. By the way, my services aren't cheap. You owe us breakfast for the short notice."

Carlos turned his truck's key. It immediately roared to life. "Yeah, it figures, you being you."

"You calling me a bum?"

"I'm calling you irresponsible. This ain't the first time you've skipped a step."

Gates glanced to the right at the passing buildings. "What are we hunting?"

"Dunno. The want ad was text only. No name or address until after I agreed to the job with some sort of agent, either, so our employer is dodging publicity. I was promised a photo this morning, but it hasn't showed up on my T.D. yet."

"Now who's skipping steps?"

"It doesn't matter when I'm taking the job no matter what it is."

Gates forced a sarcastic laugh. "Careful. Keep talking like that and I'll get suspicious that I'm not the only poacher in this truck with cash flow troubles."

"Name me a poacher who doesn't," retorted Carlos.

Anthony did have to think about it for a moment. "Hunter Hague. He's been bagging legendary species samples for Old Man Well for what, fifteen years now? Something like that. If he ever retires, he's probably going to buy one of those little bite-size islands north-east of Hollingsmoth and stock it with a private menagerie of leftover legendaries that had the wrong natures and chase them around for fun."

Carlos shook his head. "Knowing how rough he is in trapping them, they would be chasing him around to get revenge. Nah, he's poor like us, too, except it's because he can't resist Tartaroyal's Ivory Avenue."

"Really? Compulsive risk-taker, in the wilds and in the casinos?"

"So I've heard."

Warden stood tall in the bed, drawing a few glances from morning exercisers. Feeling the wind blow through his flowered antlers, he thirsted to go faster. Alas, the vehicle slowed for a traffic signal.

* * *

With hair a tint of powder blue and horns the color of a soon to set sun, a young ralts stood upon a platform formed of four gray talons while another set fussed in an effort to tie a knot in a small scarf. "I have cold feet," he projected to the articuno that lay on her back beneath him.

She folded one wing across her front to bring a small electronic device clipped to said wing near her beak. "That's to be expected. Today's your big day!" A moment later, the device emitted a synthetic voice, crude and masculine: "You're normally expecting. This daytime is huge!" Ivana grumbled a complaint that the device neither detected nor attempted to translate.

"I don't know what that means," the ralts replied, hopping from one foot on one talon to the other on another. "You're making my feet cold."

Realizing that her self-control was slipping against her frustration with the accessory, she squawked, apologized, and with a kick of her leg, flipped the ralts in the air to land on her belly feathers. Like a small snowbank, they made for a soft but chilly landing. After she trapped him against her under her right wing and recovered a standing stance, he realized this would be the last time that he would experience this, and that it would be missed. Ivana deposited him on her large cushion of a nest and drew near a blanket. "It's a good thing you can't handle my cold. I might try to keep you under my wing forever."

He found the blanket to be more comfortable but less comforting. "I think that would be okay if I can't go home."

"You are going home, my little snowball." The translator struggled: "Let's journey to discover family with our tiny accumulation of frozen water." Ivana grumbled again.

"No," the ralts complained, "what you imagined as where I'm going isn't home."

Ivana squatted down and fluffed her feathers. "It will be." Ivana prepared a grumble, but the translator got that one right.

Unable to compose what he meant as a telepathic message, the ralts transmitted a moving picture that was worth more than one thousand words. Once he let her clear her mind, Ivana cooed gently and lifted his hung head with an encouraging touch of an extended feather tip. "I don't need to be a Psychic-type to know what they were thinking, your mother especially. It wasn't your fault that you couldn't connect with her mind; she shut you out because she didn't want you to get to know her and get to miss her too much when you changed hands." His head faced downward again, letting the feather press against his face and align with his ventral horn. She repeated the under-chin gesture until he looked up at her again. "She maybe wouldn't have needed to be so distant if your colors were typical, but that's not your fault, either. What matters is that she's counting on you to be brave and to create a happy life with your master and family."

He tugged at his scarf. Ivana's failing attempt at creating a knot instantly unraveled. "I don't know who they are."

"I do!" Unwilling to fully rise, she waddled onto the padding and came to rest beside him. "Master's employee should have told you about them. Okay, the family is very well-off and politically important. They came to Master asking about a ralts because they've been threatened a few times and wanted a pokemon that they could trust to defend the family, their daughter in particular, and a male would let them choose to specialize your abilities for combat if needed. I've met them personally a dozen times—fancy dinners and fundraisers and stuff—and they're good people. You'll like them. And, you'll forg—" She cut herself off, but he sensed where she was going.

"I won't forget my real family!" He tried to squirm away, but entangled in the blanket, he stumbled in place. Instinctively preparing to teleport, he figuratively froze when she dropped her right wing across him.

"You won't forget them. But, you'll forget to worry about them. I'm going to get into trouble for telling you this, but… be glad I'm untouchable; Master told them that you were the best fit he has even though you're not, because of your color, because it makes you valuable, because he's giving the whole cheque to your mother's family. They bred their gardevoir because she has a decent pedigree and they're in bad financial shape; you were something of a lucky jackpot."

"Financial? Jackpot?" he asked, clumsily mimicking a couple of the words she had spoken, not understanding but a fraction of what she had been saying to him. Even in their common tongue, as the translator's garbled and confused efforts in the background suggested, concepts invented by humans were far too complicated for yet-untrained pokemon to interpret.

"You'll understand later. For now, know that they traded you away so they wouldn't lose their home, and know that once you go to your new home, your mother and her family won't be worried about losing their home or having no food for a long time. And you'll be alright, too. And, hopefully that will be enough."

He burrowed into her feathers, coldness be damned. "What if it's not?"

Using her beak, Ivana draped the scarf around his neck again. "Your bird mother will have to fly down, pick you up, and see if we can't do something about it."

A door intended for maintenance access opened. Simon Well stepped through, carrying a luxury ball in his left hand and a completely customized master ball in his right. He fought his way through Ivana's artificial mountain-forest habitat till he found her roosting space. "It's time for him to go."

Ivana whipped her head around to face him and chattered for her translation device. "Please, tie his scarf on for me," she begged; "I beseech, entangle his throat with my fabric vine," grumbled the device.

He tied it with one smooth motion, extracted the ralts and stood it beside the cushion, and trapped him within the luxury ball. His articuno whined with a high-pitched trill, to which he reminded her, "I told you that doing this would only hurt you."

She made another noise. "He needed me," said the machine.

"No. He would've been fine. You, too."

She rose and walked to him, rubbing her left side against his chest, bringing her head beneath his chin, warbling. "I'm still fine. I needed to be hurt a little," spake her device.

He ran his fingers through her feathers. "Is that translation accurate?"

"Yes. If I talk small, it's good. If I talk big, it's bad," replied the device for her.

Simon stepped back and brandished Ivana's ball. "We'll do another quality test tomorrow, accept its remaining flaws, and get the next revision made up."

"Pretty girl voice?" asked the synthetic male voice.

His thumb hovered over her ball's button. "The one you chose."

Ivana stepped back and hopped with glee as the ball's scanning beam detected her, converted her into an energy pattern, and encapsulated her within a sphere of machined gold and embedded shaped jewels. Simon held the ball near to his mouth. "I was watching you on the security feed. You did good with him. If you want to try again, I'll indulge you. I'll regret it, knowing you, but I'll indulge you." In his palm, the ball shook with a brief excitement.

* * *

Nearly sated as he finished his extra order, Warden picked up his last hash brown patty in his mouth and shoved his face through the slid-open gap of Velasquez's truck's rear window. Gates took it with a plain word of gratuity and ate a quarter of it.

Carlos's face crumpled a little. "You don't even care where that just was?"

Gates chuckled. "He's licked square inches of my face I didn't know I had, and under different circumstances I'd throw that tongue on the barbecue. Ain't worried about cooties. An ursaring might kill me someday, that asshole Francois might kill me someday, but germs from a sawsbuck? Not a chance."

A chime from Velasquez's trainer's device indicated a message. Glancing away from the roadway, he noticed upon it an image and a pokedex entry. "A Psychic-type?"

"Ha!" Gates guffawed as their vehicle passed an orange sign, "Packing two 'dooms? Not a chance in hell, unless I forget my tin-foil hat."

Carlos passed his T.D. across the bench seat to Anthony. Warden peeked inside for a look of his own, grunting when his antlers limited his intrusion. Anthony examined an image on its screen. "I dunno. Doesn't look like much. Import?"

"Probably. I wonder if that sets an upper limit on the bounty. We'll have to see how attached this client is. Hey, Venison, wanna clear the mirror?"

After a moment to catch Carlos's drift, Warden withdrew and settled down in the bed, letting the driver see directly behind himself again. Gates shifted in his uncomfortable seat, took a moment to try to find a nap-friendly position, and—failing that—withdrew Warden's report from his gear bag. Most of the information seemed technical beyond his education, but a few details stood out. One, that Warden's pattern was apparently still corrupt despite being "consistent." Another, that the ball's reconstruction process relied partially on replicating data to replace missing data; explaining pink fur where wounds previously were, and—"Additional teeth?" Gates muttered. "Hey, Warden. Let me see your mouth right quick."

Carlos smirked, "Cooties check?"

Anthony inspected his sawsbuck's dentition. "Yeah, four more than normal."

"That's a lot when it's cooties, and they'll be laying eggs, soon," Carlos added.

Gates signaled Warden to lay himself down again. "No cooties, but he's sure getting use out of those extra teeth."

"About that: Should I assume you'll be bumming meals off of me for the whole mission?"

"I dunno," Gates admitted. "That depends on whether or not I see something worth dressing. If I can lasso it, you'll eat for free."

"How charitable," Carlos sarcastically closed as his attention became focused on the road ahead. Something had happened beyond a nearing blockade.

An officer directed the truck to stop and pull aside. "I can't let you ahead; P–G Bridge Seven is out. There's a gyarados in that pond and it went on a rampage last night. It damaged the supports and collapsed the foot path. You'll have to go back and take the sea-side route detour while it's still low tide."

"Gary-does?" asked Warden having shoved his face through the sliding window again.

Carlos glanced in his rear-view mirror. "Big fish things with big bad attitudes."

The officer supplemented, "There are a few breeding populations of pikachu out here that can surf; usually they keep the gyarados in-line. But, it's tourist season so they all went south to the resort area to be cute, get free meals, and for some, choose trainers. Combine that with recent cuts to the ranger service, and now we have to somehow fund bridge repairs. Politics."

Warden withdrew himself and looked out to a nearby body of water. "Big fish. Old mentor taught me to hunt fish when berries were gone. I found a better way than his way." He leapt free of the truck, ignored the officer's warning of potential danger, and trotted to the shoreline. Pausing only to take a few deep breaths, he marched into and beneath its waters. Twitching slightly at the shock of cool water enveloping him, Warden tested his footing. Less buoyant than he remembered himself to be, the basin's slope gently descended, carpeted in green, a combination of salt- and fresh-water tolerant grass life and other bits of organic matter. Aside from nature's litter, the water itself was quite clear; not long ahead at the pond's deepest point lay the Gary-does. Rearing and kicking himself upward, he easily reached the surface, snorted a bit of the lake from his nose, and took another deep breath. A few fish, pokemon and otherwise, darted about as they noticed his approach, but none stopped to alert the beast at the bottom. Unable to vocalize his challenge, Warden instead nipped the meaty part of the Gary-does' tail fin. As it grumbled and quickly turned about with an expression of just-woke-up rage, Warden assumed that his challenge was accepted.

"You know, some local trappers tried to bring that thing in. Two wound up on the mend," cautioned the officer. "You might not—"

The surface of the water swirled. Gates leaned a bit in the passenger seat for a better look. "If you want to arrest me for not having control over my pokemon, go ahead. All I know is I can't keep him out of a fight he wants to fight, and if he hasn't learned not to bite off more than he can chew yet, he never will."

Sixteen fish-like pokemon burst from the pond in unison. Two seconds after, a gyarados breached its surface and cast an aimless hyper-beam downward. Behind the long wall of steam that attack created, it launched itself out of the pond and thrashed through the trees and bushes nearby, following up-stream the path of a small creek that fed into the pond.

Anthony chuckled upon noticing Carlos' and the officer's expressions. "I guess the gyarados didn't keep a pistol under his pillow. If you don't mind, I ought to go out there and see if my fawn survived."

The officer gave Gates a nod. "I'm curious, too."

At the shoreline, a pair of pink columns tore through the surface of the water, dragging a staggering buck behind them. Warden collapsed, exhausted, halfway out of the water, coughing first and gasping for air second. He tried to stand when he saw his mentor approaching, but failed to rise, bleating a complaint directed at himself.

"Need a hand?" Gates asked.

Warden groaned but assented. Gates knelt and grappled Warden, one arm around his neck and shoulders, the other beneath his rib-cage, and pulled upward to help his sawsbuck get his hooves beneath himself again.

"Forgive me, Mentor," Warden solemnly besought, "It fled before I could defeat it."

Gates patted Warden's right cheek with his left palm. "I think that'll be good enough."

The sawsbuck began walking forward, rather unsteadily with slow, deep, deliberate breaths. "But what will—" Warden stopped and glared at the truck's owner.

"Carlos," he self-identified.

"—eat for free?"

The officer scratched his head. "I'm not sure what I'm putting in the report for this, but I'm sure the residents of Palmitoy District appreciate your heroics, today."

Anthony lowered the truck's tailgate to help Warden climb in. "Half are tourists and half are blue bloods. I'm sure they couldn't care less."

Noticing another car that failed to notice the detour sign, the officer flagged it to stop and commented before approaching it. "West Palmitoy Beach, you're right, but I said District. Some folk actually live here every day of the year."

Carlos started his truck and brought it around to find his way back to the detour road. Gates sifted through the heap of gear beneath his legs and found a small purple potion. "Warden, window!" The sawsbuck snaked his snout inside. "Open up again. This stuff tastes terrible, but it's what we've got." With Warden's compliance, Gates removed the spray nozzle from the bottle he held, tilted Warden's head at as upward an angle as could be managed through the window, and poured its contents down his throat. Once its after-taste kicked in, Warden kicked out, withdrew from the window, and sneezed through it.

A purple-tinted mist coated the outside of the fixed portion of Carlos's rear window and portions of the windscreen and rear-view mirror.

"Thank you so much for not keeping all of your pokemon in their balls where they belong," Carlos chided while fishing for a napkin from the fast-food breakfast refuse to wipe down muddied surfaces. He created opaque streaks, and complained in a language that his grandmother understood.

Gates gathered the remaining napkins and tried to blot drier the patch of his shirt that got wet while dragging up Warden. "I guess I'll wear the change for the meeting and make this shirt my back-up. Warden, get plenty of air back there so you dry off. We're gonna save smelling like mud and algae for later."

* * *

"West Palmitoy Beach WELCOMES you!" read a huge sign standing proudly beside Route P–G Scenic. The truck's roof sounded like a timpani when Warden reared up and placed his hooves upon it for a better view of the shoreline to his right and at his left, an endless fence of hotels, resort businesses, tourist traps, and variety attractions. Soaking up summer sunlight as the truck dragged him through the sea-breeze, he bellowed with a primal delight. A couple of women walking along the route's sandy shoulder holla'd back, one blowing him a kiss. Turning left at one of the major intersections along the strip, a few miles and a bridge crossing brought them to the wealthy residential area. Following winding streets designed to confuse and mislead tourists seeking the homes of the stars, eventually Carlos parked, checked his map, and assumed that, "This must be the place."

Approaching a mechanically-operated gate and pressing a call button, Carlos waited for a response while Anthony examined Warden, whose antlers—now flush with green leaves—clashed with his oversize pink-furred patches. The gate opened some time after Carlos identified himself to a kricketune on the communication panel screen. They paced up the lawn and the door opened to welcome them as they neared the landing. Glancing inside to see a shining floor, glittering chandeliers, gaudy statuettes, and sweeping staircases, the poachers felt like they were stepping onto a movie set. Warden made no such connection but did appreciate the higher ceilings—a reprieve from his forced habit of always minding the tips of his antlers in Mentor's apartment.

* * *

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Warden's hooves clattered across marble tile; down a long hallway men walked single-file.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Tasteful in artwork, admit no denial; texturing walls that seemed straight for a mile.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

A carpeted path to a parlor so fine; a nearby window gave to Warden sunshine.

Swish-slosh. Swish-slosh. Swish-slosh. Swish-slosh.

Making her entrance, the Madame of the house; half-lidded gazes seeing each like a louse.

Snifter of brandy singing songs of crushed ice: typical breakfast to please Mistress Œufweiß.

"Hoping to impress by parading your beast?" she said to insult a buck lit from the east.

"If finding your cat means us searching at night," Gates hoped to assure, "he ensures we have sight."

"Lighting our way bright, since he's able to flash, he wrecks gyarados like they know only splash."

In his excuses, her interest was lacking; "I'll pay for tracking, not sending fish packing!"

"Now, put him away, and come hear what I know; I need Tizzy back, and in time for her show!"

Falling in her couch, it a well-practiced flop: Œufweiß's goblet spilt not even a drop—

She thrashed her left arm, her face livid with rage; "It's the neighbor's fault; that damn swine needs a cage!"

Attitude cocksure and libido quite big, no good would she say about Next-door's grumpig.

"Hearing his sorting, it makes my blood boil; flirting with Tizzy to slip her his coil!"

Red with emotion and by it distracted, she clarified quick; her comment, redacted.

"I'm sure that's his aim: if I only had proof. What else could be planned by a creature uncouth?"

Unwilling to talk about animal need, or guessing at how sundry pokemon breed,

False-clearing his throat, Carlos made her pay heed; "Is that all you've got working as our first lead?"

"If Tizzy's not there, then it's all up to you; to bring her back home, as that IS what you do."

She called her butler, and said, "Take them away; inside my parlour, they are earning no pay."

Straight to the foyer the two trackers were sent; alone as it were, "—wonder where Warden went."

From a hid bathroom, they then heard a great sneeze; so mighty it was, they expected a breeze.

Warden rejoined them, with his antlers leaf-free; where gone green accents none were hoping to see.

Mistaking the scent first for fresh potpourri, Madame discovered when the booze bade her pee.

* * *

A tune familiar but unable to be placed heralded the arrival of a customized golf cart being driven by a grumpig up to the gate of the mansion beside that of Madame Œufweiß. Parking his ride, the pokemon removed his sunglasses and grunted at his guests to indicate that they had his rapt attention for exactly one moment.

"The lush next door lost her cat and thinks you're involved." Apparently Gates left his tact somewhere beneath the cushions of his couch. "Know anything about it? If you can't speak to us, my buck can translate." Warden tensed a little and took a prideful step forward.

The grumpig leaned back against the thin pillows that made comfortable his cart's seat, replaced his sunglasses, and evaluated his guests. Giving each a glance and a snort, he settled his gaze upon Warden and said something. Warden listened intently, replied with a short comment, listened again, and reported to his master. "He said that he noticed her being gone and now he is worried. He has been ordered not to leave home or admit humans. He wants to show me something, inside."

Velasquez interrupted immediately. "Not alone. Will he show you and our three houndooms?"

The swine snorted and scoffed and drove away.

Gates swung his head to his right. "Good negotiating, Carlos. Sending one 'doom would've been enough protection. Three, you make it sound like we're planning to feed our pokemon half their own weight in bacon each."

Warden sniffed at the ground near the gate, a little to the north, the south, and then he stepped back and examined the gate and wall before himself.

Carlos shook his head. "Grumpigs are good at mind games. After what you said about Warden kicking your dogs' asses, how do you know that porker can't get in his head, have him take out one 'doom, and then what? Maybe he's got a dungeon in there; maybe his master's a black market pirate. You don't get the kind of dinero you need to live in this neighborhood by being a good guy. Add to that…" He trailed off, distracted by seeing Warden charge at and leap over the fence. Gates turned in time to watch Warden's tail bounding across the lawn.

"So much for sending him with a security detail." Gates released his dogs. "Run your noses around this property. You're looking for anything suggesting a spoiled cat-like pokemon. The lady said she's always doing shows so if you hit on anything for dressing up, like perfume, that's probably a lead. Got it?"

Cyrus and Seth barked their affirmations and each took a different direction along the property's perimeter. With little to do while awaiting their reports or Warden's return, Gates and Velasquez returned to the truck and took an early siesta, much to the former's delight and the latter's annoyance. Awakened by Cyrus barking, their siesta ended a good two hours after it began. This surprised Velasquez as he expected neither such a long delay nor to doze for so long. This disappointed Gates, whose mind was thinking only in terms of recovering a sleep debt. The dogs had returned some time prior and simply lounged in the shadows upon the sidewalk near the truck upon Seth's insistence. Cyrus wanted to report dutifully as always, but Seth felt that Warden's linguistic enhancement was worth exploiting, or at least, exploring. Thus, it was Warden's bounding leap from within to without the neighbor's property that led to all members of the team joining for conference. The dogs reported to the buck their findings, the buck reported to the men their findings, the men reported to their pokemon their complaints.

Gates asked of his sawsbuck, "What the hell were you doing in there all this time, Warden?" having just noticed in serial the shift of shadows and the clock on the truck's dashboard.

"Grumpig showed me things. His television is bigger and more interesting than yours."

"That's it? You watched T.V. for two hours?"

"Not all the time. He taught me some techniques."

"Like what?"

"They're not for you unless you ask."

"And what does that mean?"

Carlos interjected. "Hey, the time is spent. Since the dogs said they only found days-old traces here but got something suspicious a few blocks down, let's go find a cat and get paid, okay? There's plenty of ride back home for arguing."

With a sharp gesture of his chin, Gates commanded Warden to leap into the truck bed and recalled his dogs. Ready to ride, the vehicle roared to life—with an enthusiasm that made Gates feel a pang of jealousy, remembering his dead sled—and reversing direction, down the block they coasted to find a good place to loose their tracking hounds once more and learn which way the path would lead.

* * *

Kit tossed her little cap with a checkerboard pattern and slots cut out for her ears into a barrel that contained a lively fire.

"How does it feel?" asked a mienshao sitting on the rusted hood of a car that had sat there, abandoned, for a good ten years.

"Liberating. Terrible." An urge to reach in and save it gripped her, but so did a desire not to be burned by natural fire. Anth—as she had no master to spray her wound, to wrap it, to make it feel better. As the flames consumed the hat, instinct reminded her of other options that should have been plain and first to mind. Resisting them, she distracted herself and turned her back against her recent past. "Now, what's the next step?"

"Connect your mind with mine, cover your right eye, and look at the sun."

Kit complied, briefly, before recoiling and losing their connection. Stumbling a bit, she complained telepathically, "Okay, what was that for, other than making me blind in my left eye for a little while?" Turning again toward Magdalene, she saw with her right that her drinking partner still sat, but now with her mouth agape, her left eye sparkling in the sunlight with a hint of extra moisture.

When the weasel recovered from her moment, she said, "The next step is, you decide what you want to do. I decided to live here with the other outcasts. It hurts less, but it hurts more."

Kit teleported near the car and leaned against it. "I thought we were going to travel the world."

The mienshao turned her face completely to her left. "I thought we were drunk enough not to remember that part," she muttered as though ashamed.

"I'm committed," Kit asserted, "I let him go and my job just went up in flames for the sake of your plan."

"Okay. I guess I could go. Just remember, we never set foot in Carthamus."

Kit stepped away from the ruin and Magdalene slipped off of its hood. "Are you sure? I've heard it's a great place for a single pokemon to find a trainer that won't—"

* * *

Warden snorted when Carlos asked as a question a reiteration of the sawsbuck's statement, "Two paths." He lifted his left fore-hoof, "One," and nodded toward one bank of the river; then he turned and lifted his right fore-hoof, "Two," and nodded the other way. Seth, distantly, barked and snarled something. "Three," Warden said as errata to his previous statement.

Anthony rubbed his face. "Three paths, all about the same condition, too, right?" He glanced at Cyrus, who barked in affirmation. "And we're supposed to be in a hurry. Okay, we split up. I'll take Seth one way; Carlos, you take Cyrus the other direction; and we'll send Warden and Ruby along the third since it's all weeds and bushes—natural habitat for him and she can burn whatever gets in her way."

Carlos complained, "Slow down, why are you sticking me with your dog?"

"This way, each pair has somebody who can talk if we run into anybody, each group has a 'doom, and having seen my three together I can't be sure any given pair of them will come back both alive—there's too much attitude in 'em."

Warden raised his head and gave his antlers a rapid shake. "Too much?" He bleated dismissively. "I can defeat them both and come back them alive no matter how hard they try to come back otherwise."

Gates shot Velasquez a glance above a smirk. "See what I mean?"

"Fine," Carlos consented and removed his ball belt to clasp it loosely around Warden's neck. "Guard her with your life, or Gates is going to be supplying my venison for the rest of the season; ¿comprendes?"

Warden scoffed. "I will help him supply your venison for all seasons." He said something to Ruby and together they pursued a path.

Carlos waited until they vanished into foliage to add, "Your deer's completely loco—and, you know this."

"All too well. That's gotta be why he picked me. Alright, check in on the hours; do you want upstream or down?" Velasquez made his choice, and then defended it by winning a game of rock-paper-scissors. The men took their dogs and their separate paths. After both had gone away for a reasonable distance, Warden poked his neck out of the bushes into which he had led Ruby a few minutes before and took note of which man went which way.


	6. (Simple Games)

Eternally Vernal, Chapter 6a: Rock.

* * *

Gates struggled to keep up with Seth. Were it not his familiar style, the dog could have been suspected of plotting to ditch his master as he hotfooted from shallow spot to shallow spot amid the deeper puddles that covered much of the northward terrain. Finding an island, he stopped shortly after Gates began surrounding his name with expletives.

"Yeah, you just sit there and look smug!" Gates had underestimated the depth of a pool and overestimated the firmness of its bottom, rewarding him with a boot full of sludge. Its complement looked no better, but so far only enjoyed a little sogginess. "You give me dirty looks and fireballs when I want to walk you too soon after a rain, but now you want to romp in a swamp." Catching up and stepping onto the island, Gates swung his arm forward and seized Seth by his left horn. "Lose me, lose the trail, and lose what time we have, that'll be three strikes. Straighten up or I'll start taking that team diversity shit seriously. We've both gotten too old to play at this like amateurs. Got me?"

Seth issued a steady whine.

"Good. Get the trail again and take it half-time." Gates fumbled with his trainer's device's radio until something not-horrible came in, shoved it back into an inner pocket of his vest, and sloshed along behind Seth, whose enthusiasm would be now diminished even hadn't he been scolded: the water was rising, slowly but steadily, and perhaps increasingly.

A very distorted voice, almost synthetic in timbre, called to Gates from above. "Coming tide."

Gates twisted to find the statement's source. The twist settled in his right ankle, which had sunk into the mud deeply enough that it failed to turn with its partners tibia and fibula. The man yelped at what would surely be a week's ache and yanked his foot free to find firmer foundation first, and then to—

"Leaving, Trainer."

Gates squinted and noticed the inconcealable wings of a wingull folded somewhat behind the leaves of a tree beside him.

"Who are you to tell me what to do?"

The wingull leapt from its branch and after a half of an orbit, vanished behind the tree.

"Lead on, Seth!" They continued for a few minutes. Although each step was becoming heavier, it was not until Gates' other boot flooded that he paid any attention to the water level. Seth had not tried to communicate the fact, preferring to follow any submerged ground he could still stand upon to admitting that whatever trail he was following was well behind them, now.

The wingull landed on Gates' head. "Helping or drowning?" Anthony swung an arm over his head, which the bird easily evaded before landing squarely again. "Helping or drowning?"

"What are you talking about, squab?"

"Warning, coming waves. Drowning. Then, pokemon; eating you. Helping?"

Gates called Seth to his side. "Figure out what this bird means to say and give me an up or down." Gates inferred from Seth's body language during his exchange with the wingull that accepting the offer of help would be wise at any price. A few minutes later, his right boot resting mostly atop his left, and his left boot's toes resting mostly atop a pikachu, Gates distracted himself from questions of how surfing pokemon managed their feats by asking of the wingull, still atop his head, "You live around here?"

"Nesting."

"Have you seen any espurr come through at low tide? Getting drowned, or I guess climbing a tree when the water comes."

The wingull hesitated. "Espurr, who?"

"A pokemon, like, uh, sneasel shaped but fluffier, pikachu size, gray fur, creepy eyes, Psychic-type."

The wingull hesitated. The trio felt themselves rise as a bore washed up from behind them. "Coming and going, yesterdays." Gates cursed under his breath and fell silent until the pikachu delivered Gates to an incline rising from the water and leading to the same altitude as a bridge visible to the west. The wingull commanded him, "Climbing, feeding us."

"Yes, Master," Gates grumbled as he scrabbled up the hill. When it leveled off, he found himself near an automobile path, likely the one by which he came to town, and near a fast-food restaurant. He turned and glanced over the wetland, turned flooded inlet. He checked his wallet and figured it would soon be bare and wished that it had a hole that opened to the contents of his cookie jar; granted it was mostly a hole, now, itself. "Better than drowning." Soon returning with a few quid's worth of deep fried delights, Gates found Wingull and Pikachu waiting patiently near where he had left the waters behind, although hidden behind the beginning of the slope. Kneeling, he set the sack on the grass and opened it, releasing warm, flavorful air. Although he intended to make an impromptu picnic of it, as soon as the pokemon crested the incline and grabbed something, they fled into the bushes nearby. Gates grumbled and stood, reaching for Seth's ball. As he turned he faced the business end of a pistol.

"Clip that ball and put your hands up! Don't try anything funny!"

"A Jenny?" Gates asked with a nervous chuckle.

"You're under arrest for violating Palmitoy Wildlife Management Regulations, chapter 23, section 58: No person, trainer or otherwise, may feed feral pokemon food intended for human consumption without authorization or registered expressed intent to befriend and capture affected pokemon. Face that tree and put your hands behind your back."

"Better than a bullet," Gates complained as he complied. The officer released a growlithe, cuffed Gates' hands, and escorted the accused to her cruiser.

* * *

Eternally Vernal, Chapter 6b: Paper.

* * *

Following the waterway into the downtown area, Velasquez and Cyrus enjoyed a tour of the part of town where litter accumulates and where the down-and-outcast hide during daylight hours. First, through Bum Town. Occasionally one wore a hopeful face as a prelude to asking for change, and more than once Carlos turned down challenges from self-proclaimed trainers hoping to win a wager with a pokemon that they literally caught; a rattata at the end of a rope, or a pidgey that had recently thrashed itself senseless in a rusted cage at least one size too small. "But, for the grace of God," he considered. Cyrus paced the area longer than Carlos felt comfortable with, and at the latter's insistence, the former assumed that the trail would re-appear nearer to the part of the city where residents bathe according to a schedule. As they pressed into an area which was designed for water's passage rather than people's, they noticed a similar situation in different form. Wherever there could be found shade and shelter, they found a pokemon. Each wore the same expression, despite the variety of their several species; an expression of resignation, fear, and disgust. It kept Carlos's and Cyrus's feet light, even though those faces' eyes, when light could shine upon them at least, sparkled with a deeply buried prayer.

Carlos recalled his first job: working at a game house, keeping the prize pokemon's cases and cages in proper condition. "Forget the trail; Silas, get us out of here."

Cyrus complied, although he did it by following the trail nonetheless. It soon joined with a few others, more distinct and more fresh. It was an unsuspecting path that avoided all of the obvious ways out of the reservoir channels, and when Carlos and Cyrus could be once again considered top-side, they were not a block from a building that smelled like french fries and emitted cliche music.

"Is that a Jolly Roger's?" With a growl, Carlos's stomach admitted an interest in finding out. Cyrus barked. "Well, they do serve pokemon without any fuss."

A video camera attached to the rear of the building swiveled to follow them as they trod alongside carelessly and incompletely patched fencing, seeking a proper entrance. Before they arrived, a pair of wooden shutters popped open, apparently covering what once was a drive-through window, and a mightyena wearing a pirate hat shoved his head through. "Arrrrrr," it growled, before making another sound and barking as a full-stop.

"No trespass intended," Cyrus replied, "but, this is where leaving the drainage led us."

The mightyena paid both guests attention with quickly shifting eyes, back and forth. "Be ye land lubbers members of Captain Crabdinner's Kids Club?"

Cyrus approached the window and asked, "Is that a local thing? I've seen too many Jolly Roger's commercials, but none have mentioned that. Besides, this trainer is no kid and neither am I."

"S'pose ye not." The mightyena vanished into darkness—the window was completely un-lit from behind—and returned to drop a couple plastic cards from his mouth. "Get yees wheres ya belong." He withdrew again and the shutters slammed shut before Cyrus could ask about the origin of his forced accent, which was more bombastic and unnaturally labored than Seth's.

Velasquez picked up the cards, each offering a discount on a meal for a man and a pokemon, respectively, while Cyrus sniffed around. "Hm. The way he was barking at us, I thought he was going to fight. I can't complain about this bargain. Let's take 'em up on it. The trail won't get much harder to follow after an hour, anyway." He watched Cyrus for a reaction. "You haven't lost it, have you?"

Cyrus sat and cocked his head at an angle while grumbling a complaint at Carlos's lack of faith.

Carlos refused to be fooled. "Did the target actually come this way?"

Cyrus lowered his head and whipped his tail—twitching its spaded tip like a pointing arrow; at the window.

Coming about the front of the building, which was easily double the size of a typical restaurant in each dimension, they joined a short line at the entrance and waited for their opportunity to walk across the wood-planked rope bridge that would admit them from the dock to the ship; as the seating area was not merely nautically themed but actually on a floating platform that swayed gently (usually) with artificially generated waves. He glanced at a mechanically animated pirate holding a chalkboard sign warning that a storm was coming into harbor tonight as he followed a golduck to table designed for two diners with six legs between them.

A white cat with blue accents in her fur approached them. Above her head floated via telekinesis a menu, flat, and upon it, a glass and bowl of water, each with a slice of lemon to ward off the scurvy. She wore a small vest with a nameplate over-sized by proportion that read, "Zyzit."

Carlos showed her the discount cards and ordered surf-and-turf. He could not understand what Cyrus ordered, but his exchange with the waitress was too involved to be merely, "What's the special, tonight?"

* * *

Eternally Vernal, Chapter 6c: Scissors.

* * *

Ruby yelped and leapt from the water, barely clearing it only to fall back in. Warden fixed his legs and advised her, "Stand ahead of me, face away, swish your tail." Recovering her stance she did as he advised. Nearly a minute passed and she whimpered, a prelude to a question, but the sawsbuck faintly grunted to silence her. A faint rippling of the water's surface appeared to their starboard. She swished her spade again. A sudden weight caught it, but briefly as something else tugged it away. Turning to look behind herself, she felt a sturdy branch swat her left flank and send her over and into the flooding basin again. Coughing up water, then steam, then fire, she shook her head to clear it and saw Warden crushing the life out of a savage-looking, green-scaled fish, holding it in his mouth and pressing it against a tree. A jolt of electricity coursed across his antlers and burst against it, a coup de grace that forced Warden to let the fish fall from his mouth and forced him back a half-stride.

Warden looked to Ruby, "Come eat."

She neared with trepidation. "Eat a wild pokemon? Your master lets you do that?"

Warden reclaimed the fish, placed it upon a fork in a low branch, and bit into its belly, delighting in that first taste for a moment. "Old Mentor taught me what to eat. Berries every day, a bird or egg when the moon is split, a fish when it changes shape. New mentor does not know how to hunt every day. I will make them both proud when I teach him."

Ruby licked her chops. "I would like to try it."

Warden transferred from his mouth to hers what remained. "Your share."

The houndoom hummed, and with a burst of flame, transformed the fish from rare to well. Then, she looked about, realizing that it was too much to swallow at once and that there was no place to set it. Warden bit the outermost half and suggested, "Pull." She tore away a chunk, raised her head to chomp it a couple times, and let it down her hatch; soon finishing the rest with Warden's aid, likewise. "Real food tastes better than the food that trainers give us, except for bacon. Find another fish with your tail and we will eat again." Warden continued on, following the gentle bores that were washing in from behind them.

Ruby splashed about a little to catch up beside him. "Who is 'Old Mentor'?"

Warden looked up at a tree, reared up, poked his face into its branches, sniffed, paused, and continued. "A great sawsbuck. In my oldest good memory, I am walking behind him. He showed me how to fight pokemon: how to hurt the ones that want to hurt me and how to kill the ones who want to kill me. Other pokemon in the forest like us were afraid of us. They knew that our blood was the strongest."

"Was he trained and let loose?"

Warden found a patch of higher ground with some bushes on it and pressed inside them. Ruby followed him and saw him settling down. She sat beside him. "He did not speak of humans except when we saw one. He taught me to only reveal myself to one that looked strong, that led strong pokemon, and as a family, proved their strength."

She raised her body temperature to something between the boiling point of water and the flash point of plant matter. "Trainer Gates proved his strength?"

"Old Mentor and I watched him when he visited our forest. He took a sawsbuck every time. Old Mentor told me that he would not take me, because I was still small, but that when I grew, he would want to eat me."

"He wanted you to stay small, then?"

Warden exclaimed, "No!" Seeing Ruby's reaction, springing up and a yard back, he grunted and glanced away. "He wanted me to become big like he was. Fighting with weak pokemon was not enough. We would fight… Trainer Gates. Old Mentor would defeat him and I would kill him. Together, we would taste his blood, feel our strength grow, and prove to human hunters and the predatory pokemon that we are not their prey."

Dismissing Warden's outburst as panic rather than threat, Ruby advanced to reclaim her half of their slowly sinking island. She looked at the many pink streaks on his coat, battle scars that manifested in a unique way, wrapping taut muscles and a chest that expanded with each of his deep breaths. Wondering if Warden had exceeded in becoming "big like he was," she asked, "But, you decided not to kill him?"

"New mentor proved himself to be superior. Old Mentor charged him from behind while New Mentor was looking through some… two, eye, far…" Warden shook his head and spoke as though he were speaking to his trainer, "binoculars."

Ruby gave him a lighthearted bark. "Caught on a human-only word? Try this." She gave him a translation that somehow felt like a perfect fit.

"New Mentor turned around and hit Old Mentor's face with the binoculars while jumping away. Parts of them crashed together and both fell down. When Old Mentor got up, he saw New Mentor was lifting his rifle. He escaped and we stalked New Mentor for a day, hoping for another chance to attack. But, we needed food and the next day, when we came for him, New Mentor was hiding. He tricked us by putting his scent around a fake campsite and covering his real position with other odors. We realized this, but only when we heard New Mentor ready his rifle. We froze in place, and Old Mentor told me, 'I would be proud to call this trainer my master. If he kills me, impress him, follow him, exalt him; show him the strength in our blood and he will help you increase it. By his side, become for your proteges the mentor I wanted to be for you.' I asked him about our territory, the others, but he ordered me to be silent; 'Grow strong enough, and those won't matter.' We waited until the shadows fell another way before moving. Old Mentor moved, and New Mentor killed him. That is why he is New Mentor."

The water level had risen enough that Ruby now rested beside Warden. "You weren't worried that, maybe after you evolved, he might want to kill you?"

"Weak pokemon worry."

A bore climbed up to touch Ruby's toes. "I can't smell anything like a cat here. If we don't find the trail again before this water washes what's left of the land, we will fail."

Warden nuzzled Ruby's neck. "A tree we passed before resting here was the end of the trail. A bit of its fur was in the branches so it rested there when the water rose and went back afterward."

Ruby thought it over and did not like the prospect. "Phooey. I noticed that the trail seemed to be doubled or tripled over, but I was hoping against a dead end."

"Look ahead of us. There are no good trees to hide in or islands to rest on and then it's a lake for a long way."

Ruby peered through the bushes. Warden's logic seemed reasonable enough. "Let's go back."

Warden grunted. "Rest more. Talk more. You aren't like Mentor's dogs. I like you."

"I'd like to talk with you more, too—my master doesn't let me talk with other pokemon much—but if this water keeps rising, I—"

"You will straddle my back and I will carry you."

She flopped down against his belly, feeling her external ribs collide with his internal. "Okay, we'll stay here for a little time. But we do need to go soon. Palmitoy is infamous for getting wetter than you think it will. Now, what do you want to talk about?"

Warden told her.

* * *

Eternally Vernal, Chapter 6d: Noughts.

* * *

Carlos noticed the clock on his T.D. when it signaled and incoming audio-only call. "Gates, you have a funny sense of time when it comes to checking in every hour." Cyrus did not turn his attention from the diced steak he was savoring one chunk at a time until he heard Trainer Velasquez's voice shift when it repeated, "In jail? What— … shit. Well, here's the good news. I found the cat, but Madame Half-in-the-bag isn't going to like what we found. Worse. Yeah. Hey, don't try to put that on me. I rented you and your dogs, that doesn't mean bail's coming out of my half, and now that the job's a bust—. Probably. It's not your first time, is it? Could'a fooled me. Yeah, I can do that. Have fun until arraignment." Carlos pocketed his T.D. and addressed Cyrus. "Gates got busted by a Jenny for feeding the wildlife, so you and yours are staying with me for a few days until he gets to tell the local magistrate he's sorry and has his wrist formally slapped. Now, what do you think we should do about this job?"

Cyrus wolfed down what remained of his dinner, bit his napkin to blot some steak sauce, and trotted away. Getting permission from a camerupt with a couple hot platters on its back, he went through a "Pokemon Employees Only" passage and waited for Zyzit to join him for a conversation.

"Tizzy, properly, I presume?"

The meowstic shrugged. "She doesn't own any Dark-types. How much did she pay you to bite my neck and drag me home?"

"We're good enough at our job to earn our keep, it's the number of job offers that keep us hungry. Anyway, I was hoping that biting your neck wouldn't be necessary, but if that is what it takes."

A swampert wearing an eye-patch shook the wood plank flooring as she came up beside the houndoom. "If the cat wants to stay, the cat stays."

Cyrus addressed her. "The law is on our client's side. If the cat wants to stay, this place can get shut down."

The hulking starter laughed at him. "You're near to learning a thing or two about Jolly Roger's. Shove off or you'll wish you could walk the plank; or walk at all."

Zyzit intervened, "No, don't, please, I don't want this. Houndoom—"

"Cyrus."

"I left Mistress because she treated me like a doll, because she never actually loved me, only that I could win contests and pageants. I left because I wanted to change, and be anything other than what I was. And, I have. If you need me to go back, I will. And, I don't know what will happen, but since I'm not what I was, I guess she'll either get rid of me or breed me to have another espurr to dress up, or ball me up. But whatever happens, I don't want to cause trouble. That's not what I wanted to become."

Swampert spoke gently, "You came to us and we helped you. Now, you are turning your back on us, and for what? So I don't have to squish this mutt? So that slaver can put your energy in a battery on the network? This isn't a game, Zyzit; don't play—"

Zyzit's ears flicked open and shut. Swampert, bowled over, slammed against the wall; a cabin boy spilled a tray of plates; and Cyrus shook his head because the sudden shift in air pressure made his horns ache. "I'm sorry, and I am grateful. And I know this isn't a game. It's about doing what's right, one way or another. Running away wasn't right. Thank you, Swampert; you saved my life out there. I have a second chance, and I need to share it with Mistress."

Swampert recovered and sniffled. "If you think your slaver deserves a second chance, I won't try to stop you. But know," Swampert lifted her eye-patch, "this is how some slavers repay their pokemon's kindness." Zyzit gasped and turned away. The flap fell down again. "A high price to pay to be considerate," she turned toward Cyrus, "but my slaver paid in the end. I'll remember you if it comes time to collect for Zyzit. Get out of my kitchen."

The meowstic removed her little vest and nameplate. "Does your master have any talking pokemon? It might help."

Cyrus followed her out and into the dining area. "One, but I'm not sure that he knows what he's saying, sometimes."

They found Carlos at the table. "I wasn't sure if I should leave your tip with the cheque." Tizzy beckoned the camerupt over, explained briefly, and receiving the coupons, dismissed the diners.

Approaching the exit, Tizzy walked across the bridge, stepped into the parking lot, and shivered as a cool breeze welcomed her into the setting sunlight. Behind herself, she heard faint echos of a song professing the benefits of a life of piracy. She wanted to look back, to turn back, but she could sense a Dark-type blocking the way; yet, her mind focused on its Fire, as though it had burned the bridge behind her.

No, that was a wrong thought. Cyrus was innocent. She was the striker of matches.

* * *

Eternally Vernal, Chapter 6e: Crosses.

* * *

Carlos, Cyrus, and Tizzy reached the gate of Madame Œufweiß's mansion, but before pressing its call button, Cyrus detected a paw-print and a hoof-print stamped with charcoal and pointed in the neighbor's direction. Glanced at by a security camera, the gate opened for them as they approached. They were met by a grumpig driving a golf cart—apparently he had changed his mind about letting humans enter as he seemed to welcome them affably—and led to the rear, where a massive swimming pool took up space. Beside it, a hot tub was filled with bubbles, deer, and dog. Energetic music burst from a boom-box nearby. Carlos and Cyrus approached the tub while the grumpig and Tizzy shared some sort of Psychic-type exchange. Velasquez chuckled at the sight of a sawsbuck lying on his back, legs folded and splayed in the most unnatural pose imaginable. Nonetheless, Warden's facial expression advertised comfort, if not satisfaction. The same could be said about Ruby, lying with her fore-half across Warden's ribs and her rear-half dangling in the heated waters. "It looks like I should've thrown scissors. Did you guys turn around the moment Gates and I were out of sight so you could have a pool party?"

Warden opened his eyes. "No. We followed the trail, talked about ourselves, explored, came back to here to wait for you to come back with the stinky cat. Did Mentor get lost?"

Crouching and sitting with a grunt beside the hot tub, Carlos confirmed, "And then he got in trouble. He's locked up in the county jail. Wait… how did you know I would come back with Tizzy?"

"Grumpig told me where he thought she went when we watched his television. I saw that you went the good way."

Carlos leaned forward with such enthusiasm that he nearly toppled and joined Warden and Ruby in the hot tub, and shouted, "If you knew, why didn't you tell us?"

Warden stared into Carlos's eyes. "Because Mentor wanted to explore all three trails."

The tracker's hands and head hanged limp. "So if we'd asked if you knew, then, which one was the right one…" Despite his indisposed recumbent orientation, Warden still struck his prideful and slightly arrogant smirk. "I'm glad Gates is the one who has to deal with you, eventually. Well, did you have fun splashing around all day?"

Ruby perked up to grumble and yelp a high-pitched sound, one of the attitude she normally reserved for visits to the park or other great pleasures.

"Good, good. Now, let's see about getting this case closed."

With Warden's aid as a hot tub translator, Velasquez and Tizzy discussed her return to House Œufweiß. The grumpig did not like what he was hearing. "If it is merely a matter of money, that can be arranged," the pig interjected once he compelled Warden to lend an ear and translate for him, "I could say, 'name your price,' for the fun of learning how ambitious your heart's greed is and to get an idea what the whore next door offered you, but it is growing late and my shows air soon. I will give you twenty thousand pounds if you register Tizzy as your own, as such or as whatever her new name is or whatever you want it to be, and give her fiduciary power over herself."

Velasquez's brows furrowed. "Twenty—wait, I can't register her if she's still owned by Œufweiß."

"You can, but you need to connect to the wireless network at Jolly Roger's for it to work. According to their records, this meowstic is owned by somebody who works there with a blank line on the form, so you need only to ask to swab the deck with the help of your first mate—there." The pig gestured at Tizzy, as did Warden, involuntarily through the psychic connection he endured. "Your League registration card and a paperwork revision request is all there is to moving the clerical error from one row to another. Of course, it would be desirable that there be no contest to said revision; I'll trust you to convince her not to raise a fuss."

Carlos stood and asked, "There's more to this than you're telling me, isn't there?"

The pig snorted a laugh. "No questions. Oh, and half of the money goes to Tizzy alone. You and your partner can split eight thousand however you like, and the other two belongs to this sawsbuck on a valet money card because he's talented and deserves better nutrition." The grumpig approached the meowstic, hugged her, and they shared another communication.

* * *

Eternally Vernal, Chapter 6f: Marbles.

* * *

Warden lost a little faith in his ability to wield echoed-voice adroitly the moment Madame Œufweiß unleashed a "No" so operatic in its intensity that a groundskeeper raking the sand in her zen garden had to start over. Her kricketune threw a towel over her spilled brandy and gave her a fresh glass, and did so with such smooth execution that Carlos assumed past experience.

"How could you do this to me, Tizzy! After all I've DONE for you. I made you a star!" Her butler left while she rambled, "…first class, with escort. Before we even met, I sacrificed all I could for your comfort, for your career. Look, Tizzy—" She gestured blindly with a half-emptied snifter toward her butler, who had just returned with a hinged wooden shadow box nearly as wide as he stood tall; Carlos assumed rehearsal. "—Palmitoy, three times; Fenchone, twice; Hexyloxy, twice; Coumarin; Tartaroyal, twice; Sulmepride; have you no idea what it means to win eleven in three years? Have you no idea what it would have meant to win twelve? It would have meant everything; EV—E—RYYYYYYYY thi-i-i-i-ing." Her lungs deflated, defeated. The butler left with the shadowbox that was eleven-twelfths proudly displaying ribbons and one-twelfth bare, and returned with another towel and another glass.

Tizzy asked Warden for his service as translator, and both approached the lush. "I wanted to win those ribbons because when I did, you held me in your lap and brushed my fur yourself. For a while. After you got the bigger box for the ribbons, you stopped, even when I got new ribbons for you to put in it. I spoke to the neighbor—"

"That fucking pig; that's what turned you against me! I ought to go over there, and," Madame Œufweiß struggled to try to stand for a moment, but failed as Warden raised his right fore-hoof, pressed it into her chest just above where her left breast was artificially suspended by an underwire, and forced her back into her fainting couch.

The buck snorted at her. "You will stay, and you will listen to her."

"I ne—how DARE you touch me, you feral brute!" She clasped his foot with one hand and wiggled it to little effect but to encourage Warden to press harder. Again her lungs emptied, but with more of a whimper than a prepared whine. "Order him down, poa—puh—ge—"

"Warden, back off! You're… actually suffocating her," Carlos said with rising anxiety as he stepped beside Warden.

"You will listen to Tizzy," Warden repeated to the woman whose only sound was a desperate wheeze, a little out and a little in every other second. "Or you will die."

Carlos shouted, "Warden!" and gripped his flowery antlers.

Warden tilted his head a little to look Carlos in his eyes. "You aren't my master." The sawsbuck lifted his hoof off of the woman's chest, nonetheless.

Œufweiß gasped and moaned. Warden indicated to Tizzy that she ought to continue.

"I spoke to the neighbor and he told me about the pokemon you had before me. How you got rid of them when they stopped being young and pretty and when they stopped winning ribbons. I decided to leave you because I loved you and I wanted you to be able to get another contest pokemon, one that would keep winning more ribbons longer than I did."

"But, why now, Tizzy? Just one more. You would've won this time." The lady's eyes were so pleading, if it were not for earlier theatrics, Carlos could have believed them to be presenting a genuine emotion. Then again, perhaps Warden had given her a reality check.

Tizzy shook her head and projected into Warden another message. "I know. My friend told me about what you did. That's why now."

Warden stepped one pace away from Tizzy and thrust his snout into Œufweiß's personal space. "You are not her mistress anymore. Now, she is free of you. Agree with me!"

The woman's eyes bulged wide. As though a thousand curses were welling up within her, she slowly drew a deep breath; seeing Warden raising his hoof again, she spent it generously and wisely with a mere, "…yes, yes! Her ball is over there, somewhere. Take it and go, you brute, you beast!"

"Old Mentor warned me that some humans are worthless in every measure. You help me to understand his words." Warden deliberately sneezed in her face before swinging his head up high, turning about, and strutting away with, "Come, Friends, before she provokes me."

After the poacher and team left, Œufweiß asked her butler why he did nothing to protect her. With a raspy doodle-de-whoop, he presented her a final snifter of brandy standing on a platter, flipped the platter as she reached for the glass, sliced off the sparse and cliche-styled garment he wore, and abandoned her awash in the only thing that she ever truly adored.

* * *

Eternally Vernal, Chapter 6g: Tag.

* * *

"Long time, no see," spake a familiar officer, soon coming off of duty.

Gates rubbed his wrists, still a little sore from the manacles he wore a few days before—he'd heard that a Jenny always clamped them on extra tightly, and this felt like a tendon had been crushed. "Yeah, just got handed a hundred hours service for feeding a bird and a rat."

The officer chuckled. "Did you take your sawsbuck down into the wide inlet just before high tide?"

Anthony received his confiscated belongings in a large envelope from the Jenny that nabbed him, and bit his tongue when she wished him a safe and legal tomorrow. "Something like that."

"That wingull and pikachu pull their racket a couple of times each month on out of town trainers who make that mistake. It's become Jenny's beat: If she sees a stranger without a surfer out there from the bridge when the tide's right, sure as sin, that somebody's going to owe those pokemon a snack."

"Now that I've been hazed, do I count as an honorary local?"

"I dunno, what are you really asking?"

"Can I use the phone? I've got nearly nothing on my League account, my T.D. drowned when I failed my first try ever at surf mounting, and a wagon won't get me to Guaiacol on pocket change and naval lint."

Despite Jenny's vocal protest, composed of the recitation of a number of sections and subsections of standard operating procedure, the code to call out was entered and the phone handset itself handed to Gates. "Just one call, so make it count. If you want another leniency, you'll have to have your sawsbuck chase off another gyarados."

Given the warning, Gates considered carefully—Velasquez had his pokemon, and maybe some money if Œufweiß took the news well, but…

"Carol, yes—New Guy, right—how would you like to have me on the clock and at your command? No, it's a little different than that, but—wait, don't hang up! I kinda need a ride and—yes… I would be. Right, you say you wouldn't do me another favor but then you do right away and it's bigger, so it would just be us doing that thing we do again. Palmitoy. I do, that's why I can't walk it; if I could I wouldn't bother you like this. No, I, I really don't; I called you because they're letting me have only one call so it had to be somebody I trust. Yeah, I mean—I'm sorry, I—you will? Oh, God, thank you, Carol; Miss MacLeod, right. I'll be waiting to, yeah, the station's before the big bridge and a burger place. Thank you, again. I will." Gates hung up the receiver, thanking the Jenny—who snubbed him—and the officer on his way out. He sat at a bus stop and shook his head dismissively whenever one of the buses serving it stopped there. A discarded magazine helped him pass the time until its pages all turned. He pulled out his T.D. and looked it over—like his rusted heap, at least it had a little salvage value since the case was fine; it just needed to dry out and get a new everything electrical. Then he remembered that this meant he owed Carlos a steak dinner at Jerome's. A hell of a trip up there, Gates hoped that he wouldn't call on that debt until he got a chance to get on his feet again. He looked at his feet and thought of each as an option. He'd told Carol that the ranger service was his future, but the officer mentioned that department was suffering cutbacks; no matter his will, there may be no way for a while. The other, Maximilian and the shiny ralts in the forest.

That he imagined the ranger service as his right foot was a detail that never registered in his mind, before or after Carol's truck pulled up. It startled him, because at first glance he thought it were a commercial vehicle, and felt sure when it sounded its horn. "Thank you again, C—Miss MacLeod," he said before climbing up and inside.

"You're biting your tongue, I can tell." She checked her mirrors and pulled back onto the road.

"If I weren't afraid you'd kick me out, I'd ask if this truck is big enough for you."

She cut into the restaurant's parking lot to loop around. "Not yet, but if I keep feeding her those little electric cars the city folk get, I think she'll make it to seven tons gross." Causing the vehicle to lurch forward for a second, Carol patted the dashboard, "Easy, girl! Look what you did, New Guy, talking like that and making her feel inadequate." Despite the engine's steady rumble, silence between them seemed to make the ride bumpy. "You know, I don't really mind. I mean, I do, but—even though it's your fault for having no friends of your own, it kinda felt nice hearing that you'd call on me for help. In some towns, gym leaders are revered, they're like a symbol of the town or the mayor but better. I guess it's because of my age and how popular my father was, but, like when I got approved, and I'm in there in the League H.Q. and the room is full of gym guys and they're all famous one way or another, and then there's me being a big nobody, but Dad couldn't do it anymore so sure, why not let his little tomboy take it over? His pokemon will be doing all the work, anyway, so so what? Uhhh, yeah, so if you're wondering why I agreed to come down here to pick you up, I guess it's because this is the first time somebody treated me like a gym leader, and I'm just a silly softy without anything better to do with her evening."

Gates watched shadowed trees breeze by through his window. "I really don't know what to say."

"Then say nothing."

"No. I think I should. I know you're young but I never thought of you as a kid in over her head, if that's what you're saying you're used to. In fact, I—"

She glanced aside. Although the cabin was scarcely lit, she could easily tell that he was blushing. "In fact, you what?"

"Say nothing, you said."

"Too late, Mister. I can still kick you out; plenty of highway between here and home. Are you ready to be in the woods, being the poached instead of the poacher?"

Gates groaned with frustration. "You're going to kick me out if I say it."

"Ohhh, really? This is going to be good. Spill it."

"I had a dream. I was in the break room at the hopper getting my pokemon fixed up, and you came in and, you were wearing like, a half-casual business suit—"

Carol laughed aloud, "Ha! At least you knew it was a dream. Does that mean you did something you wouldn't do awake?"

Gates rubbed his face with his palm. "And you started flirting with me, and things started happening—"

"Things that you wouldn't do awake?"

"And then I woke up because when I was moving my hands, uh, down, I realized it wasn't you dressed funny. It was really Warden in my bed."

The vehicle swerved as Carol collapsed aghast against the steering column for a moment, tooting the horn while making a funny sound somewhere between a laugh and a cough. Gates gripped whatever he could clutch, but she regained control of herself and her truck before drifting more than half-way into the opposing lane. "Oh, God!" she shouted loudly in the truck's cabin, "It's a good thing you waited till there was no oncoming traffic to drop that bomb!" She reached into the console and withdrew a tissue. "I'm not going to throw you out for that, though. Hell, I guess I'm flattered, and I now get why you promised Warden that he could sleep in your bed to encourage him; you must be better at cuddling than you let on." The silence gathered between them again, and again she undermined it. "Business suit, huh. So, it was like, an older, more mature me? Sensible shoes, contributing to a retirement fund."

Gates sighed, unable to remain at peace, "Something like that."

"Yeah, figures. Despite what you said, I'm still too young to be taken seriously. But, I guess when you get old like you are, you don't want a gal about twenty years younger than you, wearing you out with all that youthful vitality, right?"

"Well, I knew you were early-twenties in the dream, even though you looked about thirty."

"Am I?"

"Are you?"

"Not yet. Almost though. It makes me nervous. It's like, just yesterday I was fifteen, got my learning driver permit and this little starter ride," Carol patted the dashboard again, "from Dad. Then, he had the first embolism, and I'm running the gym and a few months go by and now the big two-oh is on my calendar. T.V. says I'm not supposed to start feeling mortal and responsible until at least the second half of the twenties. I guess I'm just precocious, you know?"

Gates nodded, although that he did was unseen as Carol was now focused on the road ahead. "At least you got wise to it before your thirties. That's way too late to wake up. You wind up poaching and begging for rides from she-could-be-your-daughter-s, had you gotten with the program on-schedule."

"I hate that."

"What, losers who forgot to grow up?"

"No. That I'm not thirty something and wearing a business suit. I'd take us by the break room and let you show me what your dream was like. It's not fair."

Gates took his time to respond. "You'll find somebody, or somebody will find you."

"You didn't, or vice versa." Gates took his time, and failed to respond. A sign indicating the nearness of Guaiacol added a bit of time pressure. "Or, did you?"

Anthony blushed again. "Nothing worked out the way it was supposed to."

Finally, the silence that so desired to endure was left standing until Carol brought her truck alongside Gates' apartment building. When Anthony pulled on the door's handle, it refused to budge, and attempting to unlock it, she overrode the control.

"Think of my truck cabin like a confessional: What we've said in it doesn't exist when we leave it. So, before you step out and I become Miss MacLeod, your local gym leader to whom you're going to report for some community service assignments, I, Carol, the prototype of your dream girl, want to thank you. I've been hit on by a lot of dumb boys, but never a real man; and even though we would be another didn't-work-out, you've shown me what I should be looking for."

"Carol, I'm a bum who can't afford a bus ticket, I live in a flat that smells like despair—as you yourself said—and soon I'm probably going to go into the forest and try to steal a shiny ralts from her mother so I can afford rent next month. That's nothing anybody should be looking for." Gates tried the door again, to no effect.

"Those are all terrible things, and they're mostly your fault. But there's also a part of you that cared so much about a pokemon you orphaned that you didn't sell it or trade it or eat it; and when everybody thought it was a lost cause, you pulled him through it. I got a call from a guy at the pokecenter, Harrison I think, asking about Warden's background because he saw in the records that he'd served as a staff member in my gym. Pokemon gain strange powers when they bond strongly with their trainers, I've even heard they can change into strange, more powerful forms sometimes, and he thinks that the only reason Warden held together was because he couldn't bear to let you down, because you couldn't bear to let him down. That's something special, and genuine, and that's what I'm looking for." She unlocked the doors. "Get straight to bed. I've got at least a hundred hours of work to arrange for you."

Gates gripped the handle, but asked before stepping out, "At least?"

"You owe me for that dream I inspired."

"That amounted to a tease, I told you."

"Then pick up where we left off. Maybe I'll have a dream, too; don't be jealous, fair is fair. Goodnight, Tony." She blew him a kiss as he stepped down backward from the truck's cabin.

"Goodnight, Miss MacLeod," he said softly before shutting the door. Approaching his apartment's entrance, he heard the horn blow twice when her truck reached the stop sign at the end of the block. Inside, he sat on his couch, turned to lie, and stared at the ceiling for a moment. The last time a young lady took to calling him "Tony," he was…

God damn the years.


	7. A Fresh Coat Of Pain

Eternally Vernal, Chapter 7: A Fresh Coat Of Pain.

* * *

Fardeau bared his teeth and snarled. His breath today was far less objectionable than it was when he was found half-incapacitated with a bellyache born of broken shards of what was marketed as highly durable plastic and some of the fluffy foam that insulated the cooler he once savaged, but a mint would not go unnoticed. Francois bared his teeth and snarled right back. "You want to stay here, you want to wear that hat, you want to learn these signs. Now, you do another set." He pressed his terminal's touch screen to reshuffle its digital flash cards.

Fardeau began to rise from the task chair upon which he sat. Francois growled again and tried to shove the bear back down, to little effect except to encourage the bear to shove him, too. When Francois picked himself up from the floor and gathered up the scattered objects that had been upon his desk, including a now shattered award for whatever it was that he once did right, Freja approached him with a printed symbolic note pinched between her teeth. She hopped upon the stool while he read it and awaited his response.

"I know that. When I signed up, I thought it would be all camping out and chasing poachers and living a vacation, too. But that's not what it is. Hey, how does this even happen? Ninety-nine out of one hundred ursaring in this forest, not one of them would want to become a Ranger. Of those ninety-nine, even after getting helped when sick, ninety would run away and nine would try to eat me to show gratitude. This one…" Still upon the floor, he began attending to the mess. Freja entered new data, printed it, and passed it along. Francois read her second note and ran his fingers through his hair before looking up to reply to her. "I don't think I do."

She had already left the room.

* * *

"At least the orange vest covers up most of his pink parts."

Warden twisted his neck to face Carol. "My pink parts are my best parts."

Gates speared a plastic bottle and cast it into a particular garbage bag of the four that were hanging from a harness that Warden wore. "Caro—"

"Miss MacLeod to you, community service dude," she asserted.

"—please stop tricking my pokemon into saying strange things."

Warden twisted his neck back. "Are they not?"

Carol huffed. "It doesn't take much of a trick." She pointed out a tumbleweed napkin. "Don't miss that." Gates speared and deposited it.

Warden stepped forward, bringing his face quite near Gates'. "Œufweiß's neighbor complemented and complimented my pink parts."

Anthony placed the palm of his hand across Warden's snout and gently pushed his head downward and back a bit. "The gym leader's just teasing you." He looked for Carol and saw her many meters away. Raising his hands to his cheeks, he shouted, "Aren't you, Ca—Miss MacLeod, just teasing him?" She turned about but kept walking, backwards, and shrugged melodramatically.

Warden grunted at Gates. "Mentor. You are wise and I must learn. Teach me: how does acting stupid help us?"

"What do you mean by that, acting stupid?"

Warden's neck curled to bring his nose straight up above himself. His ears flicked about a few times. "Stab trash now, Mentor. The work king is coming back from lunch."

Gates swung his poker around, took a few steps, and took a few items from the grass. "I'd forgotten to notice his absence. How do you know he went to lunch?"

Warden trotted up to present to his mentor the bag appropriate for the kind of trash he had stabbed. "The wind blows at me. I can smell chili on him. I mean saying to Mistress MacLeod that she is teasing me when her hate for my color is known, understood, and true."

Gates fiddled with his spear, to which a bit of trash with packing tape on it had self-affixed. "I thought she might be hurting your feelings, and—"

The roadside cleanup foreman came by riding in something like a golf cart and chided them, "You brought a pokemon, that means you're supposed to get twice as much cleaning done, not to split half of a job between ya. Catch up with the team on the other side!"

"Sure thing," Gates assured him, adding, "you lousy bastard," when the lousy bastard was safely distant. "Anyway, hurting your feelings, and I kinda, I hoped she might turn it around or, I dunno. I don't like her making fun of you."

"She makes fun of my pink parts; not of me."

"Yeah. It's just hair. And just because you popped backwards out of summer green doesn't mean you won't shift rightly for fall or winter."

Warden noticed a plastic cup lid that his mentor overlooked. "Not just hair. I have other pink parts," he said before picking the lid up with his teeth and contorting to deposit it into the correct bag.

Gates paused, reconsidered responding, and stabbed a plastic sac. "Let's talk about Tizzy."

Warden shook his head to dislodge a large fly that landed near his left eye. "I don't know her pink parts."

"About what she wants to do. We'd be homeless and camping if Max Syfax hadn't covered the rent to taunt me, and little miss prissy pussycat telekinesised me out of bed the last two mornings because I can't find that special food she wants and I don't have a crystal goblet to put it in. Vel said she seemed down to earth, but she's turned as snooty as her old mistress damn quick. If she didn't come with her own trust fund or whatever that cash card came from—" Gates noticed the golf cart coming his way, and glancing across the road showed that he was still trailing by an increasing margin. "Here comes another spiel."

Warden sniffed the air again when the wind shifted favorably. "He is going away for now."

"What makes you say—" the foreman zipped past them at the greatest speed his cart could muster, "—that?"

"Chili. Friend Velasquez did not stop me from eating some while you were in jail. I learned then what Work King learned today." The foreman suddenly turned the wheel to steer his cart toward undeveloped land just off of the roadside, almost overturning the carriage en route. Warden, Anthony, and a few other members of the clean up crew watched him rush into the woods. Warden continued, "Chili in, chili out, chili everywhere. There are no mirrors in the forest," he brought his face near Gates' again, "how will he check?"

* * *

A honchkrow squatted behind a bush and hoped that he would not be heard. Listening carefully, himself, he awaited the approach of something pressing gently through weeds and branches. When a gardevoir ignorantly passed him by, he pecked a small device clipped to his wing. That, she noticed. The gardevoir rose from the ground by a dozen centimeters and rotated; could she have turned any paler than her alabaster flesh already was—

Hemmy stood and brushed his crest with a wingtip as he spoke to her. "Though you can't read my mind, I know you know why I am here." Sunny tensed and slowly shook her head, denying. He took a couple of steps forward, transfixing her with his gaze. "You know that your daughter is different, in a way prized by some humans. I know you know because you would not protect her as you do if you didn't. You're wrong to."

The gardevoir scowled and raised her left arm. A strange red fog formed around it.

With a dismissive but demure gesture of his wing, Hemmy besought her patience. "I do not intend to fight with you, so I will take that will-o-wisp as a personal insult." Sunny flicked her arm aside, casting off the fog before it coalesced into anything substantial. "Thank you for reconsidering, Ma'am. I was ordered to watch over you, and now, to give you a chance to solve our problems peacefully."

She instinctively tried to read him, but all she felt for trying was the Dark-type's amusement at her futile effort. "Our problems?" she softly spoke, "We have no problems, except for being spied on."

"So you have told yourself. And, so you believe, except when she sleeps deeply enough that you can step away and un-bottle your emotions. When you weep for her, for him, and for yourself." With a flash of fury afflicting her facial expression, Sunny spat an aghast accusation at Hemmy that he interrupted: "Every moment that I haven't been given an overriding duty, I've been watching. Don't pretend to be surprised, you know that your daughter's condition is particular enough. Speaking of, where is she, now?"

The red fog began forming again. "I will never let you take her!" Sunny snarled.

Again, he signaled a yield. "Understand, please, that I ask from concern for her safety."

"I don't sense anyone nearing h—" She caught herself and her eyes flashed. "But you're not the only one hunting us."

Hemmy stepped forward again, draping a wing over her arm and drawing it downward, dispelling a second half-baked will-o-wisp. "Fortunately for us, the most competent poachers are on our retainer, but the rumor we heard has not stopped circulating and it whets the appetites of amateurs. We are fortunate that a trainer with a tin-foil hat and a sneasel haven't yet decided to have a go at getting a shiny ralts this weekend. You are elusive, but someday chance will ruin you." He whispered against her gills. "You know she will come to no harm. You know she will live a charmed life. You know you can give her everything you wished for yourself."

Sunny cringed, hissed, and astounded Hemmy with a sidestep and a fist to the side of his head. "Everything I wished for myself was based on a lie. That lie the humans tell all of us. The lie they tell themselves and believe truly so we can't hear their deception in their voices and, for my kind, their thoughts. You won't fool us again, not if you're trying to trick me or if you really believe it."

The bird shook his head as though some loose parts needed to be shaken back into place. "I am sorry. I know you know you think you are helping her, but until you give her a home, your tears will fall every night, and she is the one drowning in them."

The gardevoir lowered her gaze. "When I was with that man, I learned a few of their expressions. For you—" she strained her voice to pronounce the correct sounds, "Burn in Hell!" Following through on her third attempt, she cast will-o-wisp upon Hemmy and as he squawked in pain as he suffered being enveloped by a faintly-glowing crimson cloud that burned his body through and through, she used her powers to momentarily counteract gravity and leapt up through a break in the canopy, high enough to see where she needed to go—once she collected her daughter from where she had hidden her—and to flee again. Before she teleported, she rotated around once and looked over the county. West, away from the cities and the mountain; toward scarcer food and wilder pokemon, but also fewer people; few, but one in particular.

Sunny found her daughter sleeping where she had been left, nestled in the mouth of an abandoned burrow behind a felled tree. The ralts awoke and read from her mother that they were about to travel far away again. Asking why as a form of complaint, Sunny struggled to fabricate an excuse, resorting to editing a select few of Hemmy's words and projecting them as though they were her own. The ralts wondered what her mother wished for herself, but when she probed, Sunny shut her out.

That evening, Hemmy perched in a tree, watching over Sunny as she carried herself and her charge beneath him. When the device on his wing chimed, he jumped with surprise, flapped his wings to stay aloft, and flew eastward to instead stand upon a stony outcropping. The device chimed again en route and once more as he prepared to activate it.

Ivana's natural voice was difficult to understand through the device's tiny speaker. "Simon is anxious for your update. Tracking shows that you stopped during your patrol."

Hemmy's throat clenched before he lied. "No contact. I found some berries and did a nap."

"Simon will be disappointed. He doesn't want her to be hurt, but—"

"I'll do everything I can."

Ivana squawked, "You haven't been?"

"How long before he gives up on me?"

Ivana cooed and thought, "Not long. Gates and Velasquez are both ready for a signal, though Gates may not show. The employee said he was being fussy."

"I'll do everything I can." Hemmy turned off his communicator.

Ivana preened herself and thought about the ralts that she fostered for a short time. Approaching a mirror in her lavatory, she stared at herself and the phony forest habitat behind. "Everything won't be enough."

* * *

"Mentor!" Warden shouted, assuming that Gates' stopping in his doorway meant that he was threatened by something within. His instinct was to stand beside his mentor to create a broader defense, but thrusting himself through the narrow gap to Gates' right between the man and the door without making contact with both was physically impossible. Warden took in his surroundings: The flat smelled repulsive, its contents had been arranged chaotically, and in the moment between his head entering the doorway and his tail leaving it behind some brute had ambushed Gates, knocking him to the floor and into one of the two stools at his kitchenette bar. Warden grunted deeply and brandished his pink-flowered antlers.

Anthony flailed an arm, clearing a stool from his line of sight. "The fuck, Warden?"

"Where is the fuck, Mentor? I will defend our territory from it!" He pounced forward, near the couch, and then hunkered down to peek behind it and see if that was where the villainous fuck hid after assaulting Anthony.

"Stand down, idiot, before you break something!"

Accepting Gates' evaluation that there were no hidden ninjas, Warden attended to his mentor, lowering his head and pressing his nose into Gates' chest. "Old mentor told me of certain dangerous pokemon, that can move and attack almost too fast to be seen. The attack is not powerful but, I thought maybe you—"

"Warden, just, don't be worried like that." Gates reached across Warden's neck with both arms. "Lift me up."

The sawsbuck lifted its master effortlessly to his feet.

"Do you even know you're the one who hit me?"

Warden stared into Gates' eyes for what felt like a very long time. "The one of what?" he finally asked.

"Rule: If I'm standing in your way, don't plough through me."

Warden licked Anthony, from just above his neckline, along the left side of his face, and up to his brow. "You give me more rules than the dogs. That means I'm more important." Chuffed, Warden went to the couch, sat upon it, and after finding the remote, turned on the television.

Gates straightened the stools and examined how badly the woodwork was damaged. "It means you're more dangerous. Never thought I'd say that about game."

"I'm the gamiest!"

In his bedroom, upon his bed, in violation of the rules, Anthony found his dogs asleep. "Either of you two wanna tell me why you're making my sheets smell like ash while somebody was here redecorating?"

Cyrus and Seth awoke with starts and stumbled over each other during their simultaneous dismounts. Neither expecting body language to suffice, Cyrus suggested using Warden as translator and led his fellows back to the living room.

"Cat complained about how the big room looked, rented many people, they ruined the walls and cleaned the floors," said Warden, "dogs hid in the room not being ruined."

Gates looked around again. Everything had been moved away from the walls; the smells in the air—a mixture of ammonia, limonene, and acrylic paint. "All this and they don't open a window," he complained while doing just that. "Warden, let the dogs watch T.V., I'm washing you before the cat has us washed professionally." The dogs leapt upon the couch cushions that Warden vacated and input the one channel number that they had memorized. Warden bleated in tune with the theme song that the dogs began howling. After hearing a tune enough times, it's hard to resist.

* * *

For a moment, Carlos suspected that Gates' vehicular misfortunes had rubbed off and onto himself. That moment ended when he saw in his left side mirror an unfriendly face strolling up beside him.

"Chucky, you seem a little down. You should be happy. Were you dealing with one of my associates, instead of starting your truck might've blown up."

Carlos sat silently, and glanced across his other mirrors.

"Now that we've had our moment of camaraderie, time for tacks. Where's my money?"

"I paid you this month, India."

"I know. Like a good boy, you're responsible. You keep on top of things. That's why I tell my associates not to worry, but you know how they are, they come to me, they say I'm too soft, I remind them that I've always been a people person, yada-yada-yada, it'd send a good message if you paid a little more this month."

Carlos demurred, "Later, or next month, I can do a little more."

"I ain't asking, Chucky. How much you got?"

"Two thousand pounds."

India laughed, "Do you think this is Sunday collection?"

"I can do four."

"And I can visit you sometime when it ain't daylight full of people and their peepers witnessing things. Do harder."

"Alright, eight. And that leaves me nothing for next month, or to refill my gas tank."

India patted Carlos on his shoulder. "It's a good thing you've got friends in high places. Maybe Old Man Well will give you an advance to keep your hide inside-in long enough for you to earn your next payment. Just a tip, something that worked for the last guy to make your kind of mistake: if he offers you a job that'd get you to another region, take it, and have cash on hand when you get back. Speaking of." Carlos and India activated their trainer's devices and Carlos authorized transfer of all the funds that the grumpig arranged for his compensation, and for Anthony's. "One-point-nine in fucking League credit? You know that's only good for about six on what you owe."

Carlos drew a shallow breath. "I know it's only good for whatever you say it's good for. Wanna tell me how to fix my truck?"

"Chucky, I fix deadbeats, not dead trucks. Be cool, my man, and don't let me down." India strutted away and smirked again when he heard a brief toot as Carlos let his head droop and bump his truck's horn.

* * *

"Tammy Tellovie, junior-class ranger, reporting for duty!" Her announcement of her arrival was met only with a loud growl and some words that sounded like they must be expletives coming from the private area of Ranger Station 5. "Hello?"

Francois appeared, partially emerging from a short, narrow hallway for a moment. "Yeah, great, just in time. Since you're here, I'm not. You can do the paperwork with the senior ranger when she gets back."

Tammy stepped around the corner and glanced down the hallway, becoming immediately impressed and nervous. Impressed, as she knew that some of the rangers were known for being tough, but wrestling with a bear was beyond her expectation—yet there, that she saw. Nervous, as she feared the same mettle may be required of her to perform in this ranger's stead. "Where is—excuse me?"

Finally stripping from Fardeau's grip his ball, Francois recalled the beast and clicked locked its ring as soon as it closed, lest the other 'ring re-appear. "Senior ranger Wintergreen will be back in about twenty minutes. See this wall of awards? All hers. You'll get used to her idiosyncrasies, or you'll get used to frostbite."

"Frostbite, Sir?"

"They didn't tell you about her?" Francois donned his replacement hat and gathered a few things for his trip to the Ranger Service's pokemon-aide boot camp. "Forgive me for leaving you in the dark, but I'd hate to spoil the surprise. Oh, by the way, there's a glaceon that comes around, usually a little before the pre-lunch beat. Just shoo it away. It's harmless but persistent; thinks it belongs inside for some reason."

"Yes, Sir!"

Ranger Lacroix left with a skip in his step, hopped into his vehicle, and headed southward, imagining ways that he could make the most of his vacation to civilization.

* * *

"I think that's a doubled rib." Still thankful that the ball managed to put Humpty Dumpty together again, its reduplication of bits made for as much a game as a physical examination as Gates washed, rinsed, and repeated his fine example. "You're lucky that for the extras you haven't come up missing anything."

"I am missing things." Warden said, softly.

With sharp wrist flicks, Gates re-soaped Warden's right side and began working it into his soaked pelt, bringing up a lather. "You miss the forest, don't you?"

"I miss my… old mentor. I don't mean that you aren't—." Warden lowered his head till his nose nearly touched the grass between his fore-hooves.

Gates kept on lathering and lathering until his sawsbuck looked like a mutated altaria. "I'd give him back to you if I could. But… I don't think I could give you back to him." Gates glanced around the rear yard of his building to ensure that nobody was making their audience before dutifully yet without any lingering working up suds around Warden's rear and tail and getting straight to his left side. "I'm glad you didn't let me get away."

With a quarter twist, Warden came about, drove his forehead into Gates' chest, and, having knocked him flat on the grass, reared up above him. Plunging his fore-hooves deeply into the moistened soil just inches beneath Gates' armpits, Warden thrust his muzzle against Mentor's face. "Were he still alive, I would have now killed you and honored us." Face to face, Gates speechless and Warden without anything more to say, they both remained motionless save for breathing each other's breaths.

"Hey," called a voice from a window across the yard, "you're wasting water and ruining my lawn. You wanna see it added to your rent? Quit playing with your llama and either rinse it off or put up my hose." Missus Murphy re-shut her window.

"Uh, Warden?" Gates asked with a faltering voice.

"This channel is boring." Warden raised his head and glanced around. "Where's the controller?"

Gates rose as Warden walked away, looking for a remote that was not among the blades of grass. "How about you let me rinse you off, brush your coat out, and then we'll worry about the… television?"

With a quarter twist, Warden came about, charged at Gates, and halted one pace before him, slathering the man with a neck-and-face-long lick. "The dogs' show should be coming on soon. You could get on the couch first, then I can lay across you and the dogs will have to sit on the floor."

Gates resumed rinsing. "Warden… I don't know if I should mention it… do you remember what we were talking about a minute ago?"

Warden was looking up at the sky. "Is it getting morning or night?"

"Night, Warden."

"Night. Then, we were talking about spare ribs."

"Yeah. We were. Warden, for what it's worth, I'm sorry about what's happened to you." Gates toweled off Warden enough that he would not leave a dripping trail through the building and together they returned to Gates' apartment. Inside, Warden shut the door behind himself and approached Gates, who was addressing his dogs and musing that the paint must now be dry enough to put back his furniture.

Warden nudged Gates from behind, and when Gates turned, pressed his forehead against his mentor's. "Never apologize to me for what you did. If you were mistaken, then I have no reason to accept you as my mentor. I don't want to miss you, too." Warden gave him another massive lick and, as though he had immediately forgotten Gates was there, walked past to park himself before the television.

* * *

Many miles away from Guaiacol, in the forested lands east of Rennin, a great storm brewed blowing fierce winds that stripped limbs from trees and cast down sheets of rain between streaks of lightning. Certain that her pursuer must have taken shelter, Sunny decided to do likewise and hopefully escape immediate supervision once the storm passed. She carefully made for a small cabin, hidden well enough by overgrown canopy that even birds rarely visited it. Sunny did not knock, there was no sense in it. "Grandmother," Sunny projected as she came upon the cabin, "may we take shelter tonight?" A warm, but faint response bade her to enter. Teleporting herself and her daughter from outside to inside, Sunny sensed that the cabin's occupant was in bed. Something did not smell right. Knowing where to find an old oil lamp, Sunny cast will-o-wisp upon its wick, setting it to flame for the time being. Its glow shone through a layer of dust on its glass.

An old woman struggled visibly and audibly to push her body up against the head of her bed to sit somewhat upright. "Where's our little girl?" she asked, that question inflected as though it were rhetorical, but her body language suggested more. The ralts leapt up onto the bed with ease and soon felt the old woman's frail arm reach around that young pokemon's back. "Still a tiny thing." Granny sounded disappointed. "Don't you want to be tall and beautiful like your mother, someday?"

The ralts nodded and the mother projected, "Someday. But not until we find someplace safe."

Granny stroked the ralts' dome of a hair-do and complained, "You are someplace safe. You've always been someplace safe. Years, it's been, and nothing bad has happened except those years getting lost."

Sunny expressed a dull discomfort. "Safe because I've kept her safe. They've circled us, and soon they will descend on us. And it has not been that many years."

"Years enough that my cataracts have me more remembering what she looks like than seeing her right here in front of me."

"I can make more light," Sunny admitted, looking around for additional lamps.

Granny gestured for the ralts to lie beside her and cozy up. "It's night, leave the darkness be." Sunny got a read on what Granny was thinking—more light would not help, her vision was too far gone. "There will be a thunder flash here and there for us now and again tonight, I reckon."

For some time, they discussed the little things, mostly amounting to Granny dispensing little bits of motherly and grandmotherly wisdom to the gardevoir as though she were her own daughter but that hadn't run away at fourteen, and hadn't been… and she dispensed it with such emphasis and volume that once the ralts had long since fallen asleep, Sunny could not withhold her suspicions any longer. "You need me to take you to a city, to a hospital."

"Like hell!" Granny spat, her voice hoarse and her reaction to herself being to check that she had not awoken the little one. "Ain't no cure for the sands running through. Lis'n, I know about hard-headed girls, so I'm not going to spend all night telling you do to something I know you won't. But I am gonna tell you about something you're ignoring. Spring can't last forever. Just like you I tried to hold on to it and just like you will if you don't let go, I regretted it. I know you think she won't be like mine but sooner or later, she's got to have her own life. And, you're probably telling yourself that you need to be there for her, to be the best mother you can be, but really you ain't—you're being the worst because being her mommy is the only identity you've got left."

Sunny of course spoke no words to defend herself, but her fury made small objects in the cabin shake.

"When I started feelin' this in my bones, I figured I might make it a little while longer, long enough to—never mind. Do me a favor, Dear, and put a hole in my floorboard by the bed. Count, one, two, three boards away from it, and try to line it up with the north edge of this window." After Sunny used a combat technique to comply, the old woman continued, "Reach in there and feel around, there ought to be a safe in there." Through the hole, Sunny extracted such a box. "Twenty-two, twenty-seven, thirty-six. If you don't know what the numbers look like, I'll picture them in my mind for you." Within the safe, Sunny found mostly photographs and scattered jewelry. "I've heard that sometimes your kind can pick stuff up, like memories, off of things like those. Please, look at those pictures, hold my silver, and put what you see and feel into my mind."

Sunny closed her eyes and projected, "I can try, but I may not be able to control what comes through. It may be too much for—"

"So be it. God led you to me when you needed my help, and God leads you to me when I need yours. I heard His voice tonight, and I went deaf two months ago; He told me to be ready, and I am. Just, promise me one other thing, if you can: I'd like to look up at my garden, if you can do it without digging through it."

Sunny looked at a few of the photographs. Granny, in her long past youth with somebody strikingly handsome (for a human); a few photographs down, a newspaper clipping that featured a photograph of the man and some ripples in the paper's fibers. Photographs of her with her baby, but never again with the fellow. Sunny picked up a locket among the jewelry and put it on. "Forgive me," Sunny projected to Granny before concentrating on connecting with the locket.

"He will. He always does."

When the ralts awoke at daybreak, she found herself lying on a quilt folded upon itself three times to make a small futon. Immediately beside her lay her mother, and glancing up at the bed, she found nobody else within the cabin. Awakening her mother with a projection, the gardevoir curled herself away from the floorboards, her dorsal antenna emerging from a hole therein. Sunny rubbed her face and chuckled, remembering the last time she slept lying flat like that for a moment before dismissing the thought, for fear her daughter might tune into it. Floating herself a short way to orient her body vertically, Sunny quickly surveyed the cabin's contents, filled a fabric bag with the ready food she found and some potable water, and prepared to depart.

When the ralts asked what happened to Granny, Sunny replied shortly and specifically, "She traveled away to meet with her daughter."

* * *

Crawling back into bed gently, Gates drew up his bed-sheets, over himself and partially over his oversized deerling, up to where he draped his left arm over that creature's body. They lay at an angle awkward but requisite, and strangely quickly increasingly sensible in Anthony's opinion. Nearly asleep, his eyes opened when he heard a question.

"Mentor, where did he go?"

"Who?" Gates asked, afraid that he knew the answer already.

"Old Mentor. His body stopped because you demanded it. I thought that he was dead." Gates hummed an agreement. "All of the fish and birds and berries that I eat when I live in the forest, they die so I will not be hungry and become weak and die or be eaten. Old Mentor taught me this, that our strength is falling out of us like how water falls off of us when we are under rain or leave a lake or river. It goes into the water and into the plants and into the animals, and each bigger animal must hold more or it gets weak and dies, no matter if it is eaten by another first."

Gates complained, "I want to listen to you but I'm very sleepy. Can you go to the end, or ask me in the morning."

"When you use my ball, my strength and my body goes in, and stays together and doesn't fall out. When I disappointed you in the cave by losing my fight with—"

"No, Warden. You disappointed me because you didn't love me enough to come back when I told you to, and—" a great tremor shook the bed. An effort to rise and investigate by Gates was thwarted as the entire bed turned vertically, dumping him off beside it as the mattress fell over and made like a cave, or a cave-in, nearly trapping him but for a bed-stand and a now broken lamp upon it keeping the collapse mostly above him. Through its padding, he heard a braying: a complicated, coded message repeating sloppily and interrupted periodically by deep inward breaths. With much effort, Gates squirmed free at about the same time that an angry fist began pounding on his door. Carefully exiting, he sidestepped around the form of Warden—still screaming at the mattress with his eyes clenched shut—and left his bedroom. The landlord and Missus Murphy had just let themselves in, demanding explanation. "Well, my pokemon… he's upset about something." They demanded he be recalled and did not buy Gates' explanation that he could not because Warden's ball had malfunctioned, even after showing them the ball. Tizzy, reluctantly departing a fancy and properly-sized bed all her own and sliding a silk sleep mask up her forehead carefully to ensure that its elastic band did not unfold her ears, approached the landlord couple and her current owner with a stretch of her arms to get their attention and a yawn to soon depress their argument. Then she went into the darkened bedroom and attended to her translator.

Jumping straight up into the air and clapping her paws, the three humans awoke, albeit groggily, and tried to remember what they were doing and why. The Missus was first to remember that it had something to do with noise. Her husband agreed with her and asked of Gates not to let whatever had happened happen again. Gates easily assured him that it wouldn't, not knowing why he felt like he could promise such about whatever. Yawning again, the owners let themselves out. Thudding against un-carpeted flooring, Warden's hooves carried him into the kitchen and into the space where his master stood; Gates stepped back until he struck the counter near the sink and onward Warden pressed albeit slowly now, his antlers the purest of white—akin to much of his fur—and between them his forehead crossed by a bleeding line just above his bloodshot eyes. They did not blink until his face so neared Anthony's that each felt the other's bodily warmth. Gazing into them, they seemed deep, they seemed dull, they seamed dead. Something within Gates snapped.

"What is this… this THING in front of me? Destroying my bed, knocking me down when I'm washing it, disrespecting me," he brought his head down, butted it against Warden's, and pushed. Two hundred pounds of venison grunted and slid back a few inches before resisting. "You're not my Warden. My Warden wanted to stand beside me, not on top of me. He wanted to prove himself worthy of my trust, not of my fear," he pushed harder, but Warden did not budge, "He was brave if not fearless; he wouldn't lose his nerve and freak out because of a daunting challenge or because he made a mistake," pushing with greater effort, Warden slipped back two inches, "He'd never give up what he had for what could have been," another inch, "and he would earn the respect of anyone who stood against him. Anyone, including me!" Gates gripped Warden's antlers and pushed with all of his might. Warden's hooves scratched furrows into the vinyl until it ran out. Catching on the metal that protected the edge of the carpet, Warden's rear legs folded and the whole beast fell onto its left side, revealing a chaos of pink fur lines and patches amid the white.

When it rose, lightning arced up and down its antlers. Again it slowly approached Gates, but the man refused to retreat deeper into the kitchen. Instead of body heat, it was a stench of ozone that soon separated them. "I don't know who I am," the sawsbuck slowly spoke, "and I don't know who you are."

"I know who you can be, Warden," Gates whispered. "You can be my son, because I have adopted you, and I accept you unconditionally. And I can be your father, because no matter what mistakes you make, I know that you always want to do your best." Warden's shoulders shifted and he stepped back half of a pace. Dipping his head, the sparks intensified and he reared back, sending his antlers up and punching through the ceiling. He snorted and groaned, inhaled, and sneezed—violently enough to stagger him and force him to awkwardly sit.

His antlers were once more in fullest bloom, and Gates caught a glimpse of the shimmer that spread along Warden's coat as its white turned a temperate tan once again.

Not unlike the moment at the lake, Gates helped Warden to stand on his own again. Snorting a bit and accepting Gates' help in clearing his nostrils into a dishrag, Warden resumed, "—the pokemon there, my strength went into the ball and my body did, too, but they weren't together. I put my body back together; I was in my strength, I wasn't in my body but I needed it so I could put my strength in it and come out again. What am I, Father? When we say 'I,' what do we mean? Where did Old Mentor's I go? When I eat a fish, where does its I go? I take its body and its strength, but I don't get its I."

Gates led Warden to the sink. After rinsing the deer boogers off of it, he used the rag's dampness to clean crusty blood from fur around the cut across Warden's scalp. "I wish I knew, but it seems like nobody knows. I think the best we can do is try to keep our 'I' and our strength and our bodies together as much as we can; and in your case, appreciate that yours stitched together as well as it did—God bless the pink bits." Warden followed Gates to his bedroom, and asked what had happened to it. Gates hesitated, swallowed, and admitted honestly, "You happened to it."

Passing by Anthony, carefully, Warden examined the mess. "May I help you put it back, Father?"

Gates exhaled with relief, although he did not dare show it, and returned the bed's frame's feet to the floor. "Of course. It's your bed, too. Just, let's stick with 'Mentor'—people might get confused, even if we explain it."

Warden effortlessly pushed the mattress over and mostly into position. "You are forever my both," Warden said before licking Gates' face, flopping onto the bed, and stretching his limbs with a yawn. Gates put out the light, grabbed the nearest edge of the scattered sheets, and climbed in.

Watching unnoticed, Tizzy softly padded back down the hallway, unlocked the sleeping houndoom's balls, and released them onto the couch. Satisfied with their oblivious snoring, she pulled back down her sleep mask, and again curled into the comfortable bed she had rush-delivered that afternoon. Paint, check; bedding, check; remedial mental rewiring of the deer, check; food quality and place settings, pending; bathroom, to renovate; kitchen, pending; ceiling repairs, do it with the kitchen; being forced to wear fashion accessories that she didn't much like, never again. This place was shaping up quite nicely for a stag pad.


	8. Record Low

Eternally Vernal, Chapter 8: Record Low.

* * *

Neglecting his opportunity to focus on the positive aspects, such as his having lost enough weight to use a different hole on his belt, Gates chose instead to speak in the frustrated tones of a man who had been missing meals being asked for more food by his somewhat demanding charge. "Then go out, find a burger joint that's friendly, and buy whatever you want. You got two thousand pounds for sending Vel to a free dinner and for sending me to get arrested for not getting drowned; put 'em in your belly. Now leave me and my noodles alone!" he shouted at the peak of his outburst. Despite ordering Warden away, it was Gates who did the leaving, taking his cup of ramen into his room and slamming the door behind himself.

Warden snorted and kicked the kitchen's vinyl, putting a couple dents across an established scar. "Cat," Warden shouted in the pokemon's private language, "look inside Mentor's head and tell me how to make him happy!" By the time Tizzy leaned up from her plush bedding, Warden had crossed the living room and stood himself before her.

Flipping up her mask, she rebuffed his request. "I won't dirty myself by taking into me anything from a human mind." She rolled over and dismissed him with a wave of her paw. Warden growled for a few seconds before Cyrus interceded.

"Warden, Master has instructed you to go out for your breakfast."

Warden turned enough to glance at Cyrus and spoke softly, "I don't know if I know how to. I've watched him buy food at places, but…"

"But you don't want to make a mistake." Cyrus gestured toward the door. "Come along, we'll share your permission." Above the place where a thief once hid when nobody thought to look there hung a small bag with a looping strap attached. "Drop that over my head so I can wear it. Put your money card in its pocket and I will show you how you can buy food with it." Warden complied and watched Cyrus demonstrate how to turn the doorknob using a small rubber mat that had been hidden away for just such occasions. Seth complained to himself—having been left the responsibility of getting out of his comfy pose on the couch and walking all the way over to the door to secure its locks behind them—something about doors not being much different from light switches.

"Master has every reason to be angry," Cyrus informed Warden as they turned onto the sidewalk, "Velasquez kept his money and isn't answering calls, Tizzy is taking over the apartment—literally since her money paid for the next month's rent—and you got a decent paycheck for not telling him where to find the cat when you knew. I think that's what's bugging him most of all."

"I apologized. He gave me some new rules to know when I should tell him things he isn't asking about. Why is he still unhappy?" They approached a corner and Warden stopped upon noticing that Cyrus now sat beside a post, apparently because of the cars speeding by he was unwilling to approach the curb. Warden felt agile enough to dash across, anyway. "I have been told to help Mentor by telling him things that will change his mind on what he wants to do. I will. Doesn't that make it okay?"

The crosswalk signal illuminated a white emblem and Cyrus led Warden across safely. "I don't know who told you that, but, yes, if you're worried he's about to make a mistake, it's always right to warn him. But Master is still unhappy whether or not you remind him that we're having a lean summer, and if Tizzy did read his mind like you asked her to, he would be furious that you suggested it."

"How do I make Master happy? Neighbor Pig told me some things I could do but he said that I should not do them unless Mentor asks me to, first. But if he doesn't know to ask, it is like when we hunted the Cat, but the rules Mentor gave me don't fit them. Help me."

Cyrus asked for details and listened with a steadily increasing level of shock as Warden enumerated the pig's ideas of recreation. Ultimately, he advised Warden, "I don't think any of those things would work. Or should ever be spoken of. He was right, not unless asked." Cyrus noticed shortly thereafter that the tapping of Warden's hooves crossing the concrete had stopped. He turned, and saw Warden standing beside a curbside mailbox, resting his head upon its arching top. "If you don't come along, you can't get a filling breakfast."

Warden remained spaced-out for a while. "I've had many breakfasts. My second breakfast was years ago. I smell bark and leaves. You can bark but I can't leaves: I flowers."

"Warden?" Cyrus asked, hoping to capture the sawsbuck's attention, although Warden only responded by closing his eyes. "Let's be going. You should get the food you wanted so we can go home. Mentor will be upset if he wants us and can't find us."

Warden snapped into an erect posture as though he'd heard a gunshot. Stepping away from the box, a shimmer cascaded across his pelt.

Cyrus glanced ahead, to where Warden was looking with a distant stare, and leapt before him, snorting some flame. "No! You will follow behind me."

Warden lowered his head and let some electricity fly between his antlers. "Why should I?"

"Because I am stronger than Seth is, who has already asserted his dominance over you, and because you don't know where to go."

"Wrong!" Warden shouted. The charge dissipated as Warden shook his head gently and relaxed his stance. "I don't know what to do but I have to!"

"What do you mean, 'what to do?' Why are you holding yourself responsible for things that aren't your fault?" Cyrus asked, calmly.

Warden looked in a few directions as a convertible pulled up alongside them, stopping according to a signal light's demand. Inside, the driver vocalized and gestured in sympathy with the music on his car's stereo, although he reacted with a start when Warden stepped as near as he could, craning his head and neck over its passenger seat, to declare, "This man looks like he is happy. Man! What do you do to be happy?"

The gentleman turned down his stereo's volume, and upon hearing Warden repeat himself when he asked, he answered the buck's question with, "A blonde or a red-head. Tonight I'm hoping for both. Now, get away from my car, 'Buck." The signal changed and he drove away before Warden could ask for additional details.

Cyrus turned and walked away, looking back to say, "I don't think his advice will help, either. Let's look around. Maybe inspiration will strike."

Warden trailed behind Cyrus by a few paces. He kept his ears swiveling and his eyes opened wide, but inspiration never presented a hint of itself, so were it lurking, it must have been soundly intimidated by the strength that he and his compatriot presented. After traveling a few blocks, Cyrus indicated a turn and a solution to the problem that motivated their departure. "There, Warden. That fuel station has around back an automat for pokemon with money cards." The word "automat" was, at first, untranslated in his mind, but what it was called meant less to Warden than that its use was regulated by a rather muscular pokemon that warned Warden off of his intent to shove other pokemon out of his way. "Take a place in line and wait, Warden," Cyrus ordered in agreement with the proctor.

Warden huffed and let his antlers spark a little from frustration. "I'm hungry and I'm bigger than these pokemon are. They should be happy with eating what I leave behind," he complained, bristling a bit as Cyrus stepped squarely in front of him.

A couple of minutes later, the houndoom sat while a loudred before them agonized over a choice of flavors, and arrived at a fitting rejoinder. "And you should be happy, too. Just, be happy, Warden. You are allowed to share a comfortable bed, yours is a master who so far likes you better alive than he likes you as food despite his going hungrier than you have been, and soon you'll be eating a second breakfast—something Master is doing without, I add. Maybe if you learned to show proper appreciation, Master would feel a little happier, too. I'd be balled for a day if I gave Master a hint of the attitude you've been giving him. Isn't this better than how you had it in the forest? Don't you want to show him with your happiness that he was right to let you become his protege?" Warden considered those questions intently, and long enough that he became the one holding up the line, briefly. At Cyrus's command, he bit the exposed edge of his payment card to draw it from Cyrus's vest and to jam it into a reader slot. Having not invested any of his time in becoming proficient in reading many words beyond his mentor's name and the word "resident" as part of his mail sorting tutelage, he resorted to sight and sniffing at the edges of the doors to find one that offered a bacon sandwich. Tapping a button on the box, its clear shutter opened and a platform extended, offering up its contents. Before occupying his mouth with it, he instructed Cyrus to choose an item, too. Cyrus was satisfied with some cheap, generic meat factory seconds.

Warden watched with envious eyes as the loudred stood upon a picnic table's bench seat and used his hands to easily handle his breakfast. Ignorant of the irony in that it was taking its time when it surely could have swallowed its meal and many others in one gulp, the buck instead contemplated the benefit that having hands provided, and the potentially many actions that his lacking hands prevented him from taking that could raise his mentor's spirits. "You have no hands. How have you kept Mentor happy when he wasn't?"

Cyrus licked his chops, having just finished. "Nothing. I do what he asks me to do and how that affects his happiness is his own business."

Biting its paperboard fold-over handle, Warden dropped the basket-like bowl in which his meal came into Cyrus's the same, and deposited both in a nearby garbage can. Cyrus complimented Warden's table manners; this inspired Warden's continuing concern. "Mentor is angry when rules are broken. What rule is broken that is making him angry now?"

The houndoom took a moment for consideration, "All of them. He's supposed to be king of his castle, but a princess from afar has taken over; the treasury is empty; and one of his subjects has been acting in a way that's bordering on treachery." Cyrus specified the buck with his gaze.

Imperceptive, Warden felt bad after asking who that actor was. "Mentor needs to teach me how to act right, then. If I am hungry I need to eat, and I will not lie to Mentor and say different. But if that makes him unhappy, what can I do? Even if I come to this place to eat when I am hungry, Mentor won't be happy. He wasn't happy before we couldn't buy enough food so buying food can't help things be better; just not worse. I want to defeat his problem for him!"

Despite Warden's emotionally charged plea, Cyrus merely stood, stretched, and yawned. "I don't know. Forget about your problems and help him forget about his own. Licking his face seems like a good start. I remember when we were allowed to do that freely…"

* * *

Gates awoke from a half of a nap not too long after he had finished his noodles and rolled over. Rising and readying himself for a walk, he emerged into a room painted a still unfamiliar color. "Tizzy! Get up and over here. Seth, where are your brothers?"

"My brother—and I intentionally specify that word as naturally singular—took the brute out to contaminate our town's air with his floral fragrances." Seth changed channels. "The stench of our latest coat of paint bothers me less in earnest than merely thinking of your absurd deerling's potpourri sticks. Let us hope piously that Brother Cyrus returns with said sticks, disembodied, as evidence that life may return to a happier state for us all." Tizzy stopped to stand before Gates as Seth finished growling and grumbling whatever it was he was trying to say.

"Rhetorical question, Seth." Gates knelt down by leaning forward with his palms on his knees. "We're going to find a place to sign our lives away, and you're coming with me because if I don't take you, I won't recognize this place when I get back. Are you willing to walk on your precious paws or do you want to be balled?"

Tizzy gave Gates a suspiciously bright smile and brought him his shoes before gesturing negatively at his ball clip. Although the first half of the journey differed from the first time that he sought this path, it soon joined up with its ghost. At that point, he glanced down the street, the wrong way. Three blocks along was the edge of what he regarded to be his neighborhood when he was younger. An inkling to go back almost lifted one of his feet, but only almost. His life had been spent protracting the past; badly enough already that he now retreads this route. Tizzy sensed his conflict and started ahead of him. Gates soon followed and Seth, who had wandered away to find a fireplug, next caught up.

Gates found the Ranger Service's branch office right where he'd left it. Not much had changed, including the plastic trees in the lobby and the magazines on the table, although somebody did finally replace the ever-empty box of tissues at least once in the last two decades. Tizzy asked Seth what this place was and why they were there, and was dismayed at the prospect of being dragged out into the forest to have her fur ruined by being brushed more by bushes than by her master—who surely would not make any special effort to maintain her grooming schedule—for the purpose of helping fools who thought better of battling beasts in the woods than letting their pokemon perform for the judges. Her concern lessened when Gates reached the part of the application form that asked about which pokemon he owned, would be willing to accept, go through Ranger training with, and had any phobias about, as she sensed his imagining himself with Warden, Cyrus, and Seth, but never herself. Oddly, there was another pokemon on his mind with a similar physical profile as her own, although a lower stance. Concentrating on picking up on his thoughts without penetrating them, she recognized one entity with two remembered forms and a long name. Anxious and curious, Tizzy hopped onto the chair beside Gates and watched him write. Under a heading, "Any pokemon known personally to the applicant that have completed Ranger training," he wrote, "Glaceon, Freja Wintergreen," and checked the box for "Previous or current owner."

Thankful that he was not imagining her getting soil between her toes, Tizzy relaxed a little and stood proudly as though she were waiting for the judges to come by. She felt one good trade away from earning her twelfth ribbon.

* * *

A sheet of paper stapled to the face of a fence otherwise marked with the words "post no bills" caught Warden's eye as he and Cyrus walked along by. "Brother, explain these pictures." Cyrus returned to where Warden had stopped and too examined the advertisement. "It's a contest that moves from city to city. Trainers and their pokemon compete in strange games and win money and prizes. There's a big 'Battle Frontier' facility somewhere way east, this is their way of getting people to sample their competitions."

Warden struggled to recognize the poster's words. "If I win money and prizes, Mentor will be proud of me; right?"

Cyrus sat. "If; maybe. You could probably win some small stuff by crashing into and kicking around pokemon in the simple sparring fights, but they save the good prizes for strange things that only some pokemon are qualified for."

"I will show them my qualify," Warden asserted, "Teach me how to be there."

Examining the poster again, Cyrus admitted, "It's a long walk—but not too long—across town to where this says they're set up, and today is one of the days it's open. I'll see you to it if you want to go, but be sure you want to spend half of the day waiting in lines for a few chances of coming home with something, when you could go to a store and buy Master a pack of cheese sticks and a greeting card that expresses your feelings with a cartoon character and a witty limerick, instead." Cyrus watched Warden stare at the poster as though he intended to either intimidate it into opening one of its images so wide that he could step through and into it, or to cause it to burst into flame. So still he stood that Cyrus grew bored and looked around, only to notice a shifting shadow beside himself. Leaping aside, Warden collapsed onto the spot where Cyrus had till now sat. First to check if he were still breathing and second to attempt to rouse him, Cyrus licked Warden's nose a few times. Said nose eventually crumpled itself, a prelude to Warden sneezing powerfully enough to knock free his flowers and return his antlers to full, green foliage.

Lazily returning to his hooves, Warden raised his head and took a deep breath. "I smell something good. Let's hunt it down. Can you smell its trail?"

Cyrus reluctantly turned to face the direction they were walking before the poster interrupted their travel. "You wanted to go this way, to the edge of town, remember?"

Warden reared up, punched holes for his hooves through the fence on each side of the poster to help him stand up tall, and took a deeper breath, swinging his head around again. "Yes, that way is where I need to go. But first…" Warden pushed himself back from the fence, stepped away in reverse until his rear hooves reached the curb, and shimmering with a glow about his body that accumulated in his hooves, he launched himself over the barrier.

* * *

"Got it figured?" asked a voice coming around a corner.

"Kill me now," Anthony muttered.

Carol would have none of his grumpy attitude. "That doesn't sound like the ex-community service dude who was begging for a day labor shift a few minutes ago. That sounds like somebody who gets kicked out on his ass and begs Nurse Joy for some leftover pokemon chow after they feed Adoption Alley. Now, put on your smile and your name tag, because tonight's open-floor and lots of summer munchkins are going to be coming up to you with dirty fingers holding sign-up cards that you get to try to read. And if you let my line back-up, I will refuse payment."

Gates flipped over three sheets of paper stapled together and selected an option on the gym's reception counter's secondary terminal to restart the training and testing program. "When did you become my virtual ex-wife?"

Carol stepped behind him and spoke softly over his shoulder, "In your dreams, Sweetheart. Remember?"

He half-turned to his right, and jumped when instead of seeing her still there he felt her slap his left ass cheek as she departed. "Don't forget to watch the printer. Open-floor night; it will run out."

* * *

"This way is where I need to go!" Warden bellowed from a block away and across the highway. Cyrus followed in parallel till finding a crosswalk to rejoin him, and then asked how he got there from here, and also which season coincided with his antlers looking like ocean coral and his pelt having a striking fuchsia motif, but all Warden said—that made any sense at least—was that he wanted to be near the other building and made himself be there and that he felt like it would make him tired if he went back the same way. "I found more things that smell good," he added, "and swimming pools. One had a blonde and a red-head by it and they smelt very good, but they did not want to help me make Mentor happy and told me to go away."

"You'll probably get that every time. Did Seth or Grumpig ever talk to you about making Master happy in a way that involves women?"

"No."

Cyrus surrendered to the mystery and in silence he and Warden worked their way to the fairgrounds, where Ocimene's Battle Frontier had established their temporary facility. There they passed along many disappointments—events that required a trainer's participation or at least presence—until they came upon some smaller events that allowed entry of any pokemon willing to queue for a shot. "Alright, Warden. If you want to duel for some prizes, you can go over there. It looks like it's for points and they're giving out berries and vitamins. I don't know if—" Cyrus fell aside.

"You aren't in the line so I can push you out of my way," Warden proclaimed, looking more like he usually did, except that his flowers were only buds.

Cyrus stayed pushed-aside, and watched Warden's bouts whenever his turn came up. He performed a little better than he had at the gym, but only because half of these competitors were stretching the lower limit of the term "trained for pokemon battles" and a few were clearly wild pokemon understanding that if they behaved and went along with what the other pokemon were doing, they would get berries for bruises, which was not too bad of a deal. Between bouts, Warden would stagger back to Cyrus, deliver his prize, and rest a moment before getting back in line. Cyrus watched the crowd; occasionally a persian would catch his eye, but the one he was hoping by chance to see did not appear. Amid negotiation with a zigzagoon, hoping to trade one berry for a plastic sack with which he and Warden could carry home the goods, a collective gasp emerged from the audience, people and pokemon alike. Looking toward the circle, he watched a solidly frozen salamence be pushed across the circular boundary by a winter sawsbuck, its white antlers adorned with clear crystalline flowers.

When Warden returned to Cyrus, the flowers had melted away. Dropping a vitamin bottle at Cyrus's feet, he admitted, "The man said I can only win six times."

Cyrus heard a rustling sound, and found the zigzagoon beside him, offering a sack. Accepting it, he let the zigzagoon carry off one of the berries. Then he counted and realized it was actually a second of them; not unexpected. "Hook an antler through the handle and I'll fill this up. Then we can go home and you can show Master what you did to impress him."

Warden complied and added, "I can do more. We must come back when this man goes home so I can win six more times."

When his mouth was free between items, Cyrus disappointed Warden. "I think you're done for the event. You'll have to wait for the next time they come to town." Warden was so distraught when he learned that he could not help support his family by winning carnival prizes every day that his posture slackened and he spoke of feeling aches from his combats. Walking toward the entry and exit, Cyrus observed over half of the crossing Warden's pelt shift to brown and develop a full head of autumn leaves, and over the second half, those leaves falling away, those not landing inside the sack leaving a trail behind them.

Along the way home, waiting at a light, Warden lowered his head and noticed a hint of a trail. He asked Cyrus to confirm his suspicion, which the houndoom did: "Master was here today. The gym isn't far. Maybe he went there."

Warden looked down the roadway. "The gym is where we fight. He wanted to see me fight… and I wasn't there."

Cyrus contested, "He might've gone there to look for you, but if he did it was because he wanted to see you, not to see you fighting."

Raising his right fore-hoof, he held it up and tensed its muscles, so firmly that they strained and began to vibrate. "I should've been there. I should've been with him. I shouldn't have left. I shouldn't have… I shouldn't… why did I—I wanted to be strong like him, I wanted to show him that I wasn't going to let him down." Warden slammed his hoof down with force great enough to turn the surface of the sidewalk into a paper-thin layer of chalk beneath it. He looked straight up at the sky and rolled his head around in a gentle waving motion. "Stop pushing me down. Why are you pushing me down?" Warden reared up, kicked at the air, and sneezed, snorted, and gasped as though he were suffocating; perhaps, drowning. "Why is it dark? Why are you pushing me down into the darkness? Stop, Father, help me up, let me be—" Warden's legs buckled and he collapsed.

Cyrus reckoned that Guaiacol Gym was the nearest source of aid. He pulled away the plastic bag and, with it, dashed down the sidewalk.

* * *

Warden regained consciousness that evening inside Guaiacol Pokecenter's medical wing, in a familiar padded room. Unaware of its reputation, Warden was delighted by first the smell and next the flavor of the hospital food that sat awaiting him on a tray well within reach. As he began rising from where he lay, the door opened and Gates entered.

"God damn it, Warden, what the hell is wrong with you?" he shouted as he ran to his sawsbuck's side and gripped him in a fierce hug. "I mean it. Warden, what the hell is wrong with you? They said your tests looked like you haven't eaten in a week. We're not that bad off, and—"

"You didn't put me in the hole." Warden raised his right leg and rubbed it against Gates' left hip, which combined with Warden placing his head on Gates' right shoulder made something of a hug of his own.

"What—what hole?" Gates asked, slowly rubbing Warden with his hands.

"The hole where you put Mentor's guts. You could have put me in it, but you didn't." Anthony broke a sweat, remembering that exchange. "I remembered my father today. Before Old Mentor. He put me in a wet hole. He didn't like me because he could not teach me to make fire. He hurt my mother because she made me like she was, not like he was. He put me in the hole. It was dark. I loved him and he put me in the hole."

Gates slapped Warden gently but firmly. "You're leaning on me, too hard. I can't hold you up—"

Warden pushed off of his front left leg and sprang backward into a prideful pose. "You don't have to. Not anymore. Old Mentor picked me up and out of the hole, but he never taught me how to fill the hole up and stand on it. My sack is gone. I want to show you my prizes. Does Cyrus have them?" Warden seemed not at all disappointed when Gates admitted that he paid little mind to the sack of stuff that Cyrus cast aside behind the counter when he burst into the gym and found him fighting with a printer, but soon tried a few times to find a chance to interrupt the conversation between his mentor and a staff doctor to suggest that they go back to the gym to retrieve his items. Said conversation involved technical details, but it boiled down to a conclusion that Warden's body chemistry was as anomalous as his ball image had been. Their suggestion that Warden be retired from competition in favor of intense medical study received no second, as Gates was unwilling to rule it out as a matter of potential financial necessity and as Warden became instantly incensed at the suggestion that he was weak, adding that he would rather pass out and keep fighting until he became doubly passed out than not to fight at all if Mentor did not order him otherwise. Feeling unappreciated for his cautionary concern, the doctor signed off on Warden as being provisionally cleared to fight but not to operate heavy machinery and dismissed them.

On their way out, they acknowledged Harrison, who returned a small wave, too engrossed in a telephone conversation and a large book on his desk to offer any company.

"And again, it's you and me walking out of here, only this time I'm twice as worried that you will suddenly fall to pieces on the pavement."

Warden slowed to fall behind his mentor. Nudging Anthony and causing him to reflexively raise his left arm, Warden slipped in beneath it. "Did your father love you?"

Gates walked for eight paces. "Yes, Warden. He did."

Warden leaned his weight a little, just enough to cause Gates to stumble and catch himself with a shift of his feet. "When you are not feeling happy, think about that so you can feel as happy as I always am."

Would that he could.


	9. Until Unspoken To

Eternally Vernal, Chapter 9: Until Unspoken To.

* * *

"Lower, and bigger gently, I beseech," spake Ivana through her old translator—the new one had not yet arrived, which would have irritated her had she not bigger plans occupying her mind—"it must go all to my bottom." Another missed translation, but she added carefully, "and so must you," to make the most of it and to get a rise out of Maximilian. Mister Well's articuno had gone slumming and picked up something a mighty mite mite-like. Properly pampered, she rarely needed to maintain the recommended layer of Eight-P residue to keep the itches away. "I don't want to collide against number one stud and claw away my flesh to expose revulsion." This device seemed to be getting worse as it "learned," but Ivana was out of sighs to communicate her disappointment when it erred.

Maximilian ordered her to turn a little—this being one of the few circumstances when she would deign to obey his commands without resistance—and with a small heap of Eight-P in his gloved hand he ran it through the feathers beneath her left wing, against the grain to get a rise out of her. "Why won't you let Hemmy have a chance? Each time you've decided to get bred, you pass him by. I know he doesn't have any special prestige like the birds owned by the magnates in Simian's social circle, but since none of them got you an egg, and now you're ambushing wild trash for the thrill of it, I don't understand why you exclude him. Even if he should fail like all the others, it'd let the old bird die a happy man. Turn."

Ivana complied and complained, "I don't like his words he makes."

"—Explain."

"Word choosing and word putting. Same one two times, three times. Hard to understand."

Max tilted the can of Eight-P to fill his palm again. "I don't know if pokemon language passes like the speech T.M. does, but if you want to be a mother, it seems like you're going to have to try them all." Ivana shifted into an erect posture, knocking Max's hand and spilling the powder. Loudly she squawked at her computer. Glancing at one of its screens, Max noticed it was downloading a database to local storage: the League's database for its previous season. Max poured a replacement handful, and spoke with concern, "Cancel that! That's not what I meant by 'try them all.' "

Ivana chuckled. "I will shop from the window. Until I am excited and buy." She squawked again and turned to glare at Max once he delivered a pinch of powder with brutal force to a soft spot.

"You said you were just going to look a few days ago; now I'm dusting you for bugs. As a favor to me, for all I've done for you, make Hemmy's dream come true."

"How do you know that he dreams of mating with me?" Ivana asked, although the translator mangled it almost beyond recognition. Max was not confused by the device's conclusion and plainly admitted that the last time she had made it known that she sought a mate, an unexplained purchase of an oversized feather pillow and a five-pound sack of ice, plus an order for scheduled delivery of a dozen roses, appeared on one of the business expense receipts. So solved was the mystery of whence came the bundle of wilted stems on her balcony that Ivana stumbled upon when she returned from a spontaneous trip to "visit acquaintances" in Tartaroyal. Disinterested, she moved on: "Is my tiny accumulation of frozen water nest shaping?"

"He's begun to open up and the girl was ga-ga at first sight. Which is good because the client was one would-be-crying-for-days daughter away from buying a ralts with decent stats from a breeder's salvage roster. But he paid the king's ransom to make her happy."

"Fabric vine succeeded!"

Max hummed, and asked her to turn again.

"Top done, go down to me," she advised.

He closed his eyes and tried to take a deep breath, but there was too much Eight-P in the air to draw much air in. "Thank all that it said 'to.' " She maintained her erect posture and Max knelt to start working on her left leg. "You might need another scarf if you plan on fostering the next one. Hemmy reacquired the target this morning, so we're soon to move on it. Onyx is going to spell Hemmy and then he'll take me to find our lazy losers. Gates is back to using a commodity match reporter and Velasquez went into hiding. I grow weary of paying these fools' petty debts so they'll be able to bumble another job."

Ivana turned. "Use Hague?"

"Hague could bag it yesterday but when I call him his equipment gets suddenly lost and unless he's in a drunkard phase, even Onyx has trouble out-tracking that tracker."

The articuno leaned over him, moving her wing with its clipped-on translation device near his ear. "Lower, and smaller gently, I beseech."

"You do this to me only because you can get away with it," Max grumbled as he pushed her frosty feathers away. "Turn again; right leg, and, there, and a quick dusting on your tail and we're done with this chore."

She chattered something with a wink and complied. "I choose you when you need a friend."

Shaking the can, Maximilian realized it would only be barely enough. "I haven't needed a friend since I was—since ever."

Ivana waited until he threw away the emptied can of pesticide and removed his nitrile gloves. "You need need. I do, too."

* * *

Having her change of format approved, albeit by only one vote, MacLeod wasted no time in helping her gym to rise up the rankings of monthly repair bills. Or it would once the first month was over. In barely enough days to refer to the period as a few weeks, she had spent fifty per cent above par on resurfacing and other wears-and-tears. She fretted not because the receipts were up as well, both from sign-ups and spectator traffic; the star of the home team fielded by her second—a new staff position—was getting inventive and getting noticed. It began with Harrison's techs but word spread quickly and soon Carol reserved a row or two for people with pokecenter or research credentials, as some coming from as far east as Fort Uridine wanted a first-hand glimpse of an unwitting nature-power expert; not that he wasn't adept with secret-power, too. Hidden-power had been applied, a gift from said cheering section, but nobody could tell if Warden had ever used it. It did not help that his trainer rarely gave Warden any commands. Mostly he just told Warden when to back off, and sometimes his sawsbuck obeyed and other times it didn't. Some regulars in the audience would shout at Gates to demand that he tell Warden to back off, because if Warden disobeyed it usually meant that the buck would be knocked out on the next hit he took, or he would knock out his opponent with something flashy. When a match ran long, that was one way the audience could hope to speed a conclusion.

As the entertainment value of her gym's feature matches went up, so rose Carol's spirits, income, and the warmth of her reception when dealing with the other gym leaders. It was almost enough to cause her to forget herself. "Chippy, roll out of the way!" This was a command that her rhyperior learned to respond to before she finished her sentence, because it meant that Warden was behind him, and approaching about to do something that would hurt him a lot if he did not open a path. Hauling a quarter-ton of ass on a second's notice quickly grew more more irritating than being washed out by surfing pikachu coming up the coastal route, so if you were to ask him how he felt about his new partner, he would probably rather they be slotted in order than side-by-side. Letting his momentum turn him completely about and right-side-up again, he saw one such pikachu being flung into the air by antlers that looked as though they were chiseled from sandstone. On its way down, it met with Warden's rear hooves as the local star spun about to punt the rat out of bounds. It was a one-point finish, but enough to disqualify the challenger from earning a Moraine Badge. Recognizing this and forfeiting, he fought his way through the normally stoic scientists that jumped the rail to get closer and try to snap photographs of the sawsbuck as he shook his head and sneezed, shattering away the sandy layer from his antlers and letting blossoms burst back into their places. As always, Warden walked oblivious to the bustling gang, caring only to lick his mentor's face, hear a kind word of congratulation, and go back into the break room to recover.

"Good work out there, my pale magenta marvel!" Carol called aloud, entering soon behind him, "Almost too good. Did you see the old guy in the back of the good seats?"

Warden bit the handle of a plastic pitcher to place it beneath the spout of a drink fountain and activated it with an antler tip. He alone tripled the house's demand for lemonade. "I don't look at people when I'm fighting."

"Well, let's just say he's having to decide if what you've been doing out there is League-legal."

Warden plucked a straw from a nearby cup and let his head sink swiftly into the pitcher as he siphoned up its fluids. "Am I breaking the rules?" echoed from the cup once the straw struck bottom.

Carol ran a rag under a faucet and washed Warden's face, saving him some trouble. "No. But—"

"Good. Done for tonight?"

"I am. You are if you're tired. But I'm letting the house trainers oversee some open-floor till closing time plus two hours. Peak season: if we don't get rid of the trainers who don't have bed times while we can, it'll be a nightmare during the day shift."

Warden gazed at the restoration machine. "I don't like nightmares. I tried to hurt one, but instead I hurt Mentor a little."

Carol heard the door open and glanced its way, seeing Gates enter. "Warden told me why you got that lump in your pants!"

Gates strolled up and lifted his left leg, "I guess that means you want to see it." He drew up his pants leg and revealed an ice pack tied around a broad blue bruise. "We tried a different arrangement on the bed. No more experimentation, and no more night-stands." Removing the pack and tossing it into the break room fridge's freezer to exchange it with another, Gates then checked behind its other door for cheese sticks.

"Dinner of champions," Carol chided.

Warden pressed his cheek against hers. "You should go out to dinner together."

She reached up and patted the distal side of his face. "Your voice is always so monotone, I don't know if you're saying more than what you're saying," she muttered, "but I'm learning that when you get close, there's probably something to it."

Gates straightened his pants over his re-iced bruise. "What's that, Warden?"

"If you eat together, you will be happy," Warden re-phrased.

Carol turned and kissed Warden's proximal cheek. "You're such a sweetie. Well, Tony, wanna grab something? My treat; I owe you at least something greasy with spud wedges, too much salt, and a drink I can't pronounce."

Gates assented. "Sure. When you've live hand-to-mouth, you stop caring about whose hand." He instructed Warden to find "the brat" and, after confirming with Carol, told him to meet them at her truck.

"So… about Warden."

Anthony hummed a question mark.

"How is he, really? I mean, he seems to be okay here in the gym, but I keep worrying that he'll just fall over in the middle of a match. Like he did in the middle of warm-ups this morning."

Gates withdrew his wallet and keys from a small locker. "Are you afraid it'll look like he threw a fight, or you'll be obliged to give a half-earned badge?"

She slapped his side. "No! And if you insinuate something like that again, I'll give your other shin a Warden-ing to match. I mean, I can't do anything to help him. I've got this rejuvenation machine right here, and when he went down on the streets we had to load him up and drive him to the center. I'm—okay, I'm being a little selfish. I'm afraid he'll go down, hurt on top of whatever it is that has him getting dazed or passing out sometimes, and it'll be the big headline that I let a pokemon with a questionable condition fight itself to death in my gym. I mean, bad things happen once in a while, but as freak accidents; not because of the gym leader making a bad call. Just because he passes his physicals on technicalities—and I'm not sure the judgment of Harrison's techs isn't biased before I have to decide on Warden going in the circle—that doesn't override my judgment or responsibility. And frankly I do think they check him off because they want to see him being weird in my arena." Bidding a good evening to her subordinates on the way out, Carol led Anthony to her vehicle and together they entered it to await Warden and Tizzy.

Warden's patience was thinning quickly as Tizzy went from well-off patron to well-off patron, lending them each a note written in an unknown hand that effectively begged anybody who was interested in contest pokemon to make Gates an offer for her. She was not having any luck, a fact that tightened her ears and painfully so, such that she did not hear Warden's approach. Although she sensed him thinking of doing something rude, she was too distracted with her attempt to sense another mark to evade Warden's mouth as he bit the fur on her neck and flicked her into the air, stepping beneath her as she turned as to catch her upon his back. Then, he bellowed for attention and asked, "Does anybody want this cat? She wants to do contests and comes with some money!"

Somebody among the crowd did shout, "How much?" but otherwise none expressed interest.

Tizzy complained in his mind but with her arms crossed in frustration she allowed him to carry her out of Guaiacol Gym. Having clambered into the truck's bed after letting Gates recall Tizzy, Warden settled in to rest. Within the cab, two people argued about what kind of dinner they should eat. A compromise, they stopped at a casual family joint on the south-west-by-south side of town. Finding Warden asleep to taste, Gates signaled MacLeod to let him be and together they entered.

"Still making the dogs eat second and leaving Warden out of the action, I see," she commented as they slipped into a round booth.

Gates huffed, "I think the sleep is better for him than a late dinner. We'll order large and get a to-go bag."

"Enough for four?"

"Three. The brat took over a shelf and a crisper in my fridge, and I think she's arranged for one of the talker pidgeys in the neighborhood to put in delivery orders for her. She's fine."

Having entered, been welcomed, and seated, a waitress delivered menus, water, and a personal greeting with an experienced voice.

Perusing her menu's options, Carol whispered, "You should order a beer and split it with me."

Gates' response was as low in volume but much less playful. "You're too small to be safe to drive after half of one, and you're not as old-enough as you let me think you were when you thought I had one in my fridge."

Carol grinned. "Can't blame a girl for trying."

Ultimately, Gates ordered soda, and left the bench seat to make room for it. Along the way, he noticed a public telephone on the wall, and with a sliver of a balance on his account, used it on the way back through the restroom hallway.

"Thank you for calling Ocimene Psychic Network. Please hold briefly while one of our psychics senses your need. Billing begins when you hear the tone." After seconds of silence and the promised chime, he heard a voice come through—Madame Colette, as always. "You have a great darkness ahead of you and you are walking toward it. Will you turn and run?"

"Run from what? Talk straight—I'm paying plenty so don't half-information me."

"I see bloodshed ahead of you. But, whose it is, I cannot see. It is cast in spurts, it sprays on the grass—the leaves are not yet to turn red."

"What can I do about it?"

"At least one must die and you will choose who and how many. Your honor is your burden."

Gates looked up and down the corridor, frustrated and embarrassed, but relieved that nobody seemed to be seeing him. "God damn it. The ad says you give guidance and here it is, all pessimism. Give me something I can use!"

"If you stand fast, death will take the clown. If you advance, you cast lots for yourself and all about you. You may preserve some, but some will be risked and Death will not depart unaccompanied."

The phone line carried silence save for faint breathing for long enough that another minute was billed. "If I turn back, or—"

"Retreat awaits with frozen chains and un-keyed locks."

Uncharacteristically, Gates bit his lower lip for a second. "What if… what if I stop him, and, to hell with it all, just… I don't want to be a… but if I asked her—"

"You love her too much to put her on that path."

"And if those lots—"

"She will endure."

"Good enough." Gates slammed the receiver down onto its cradle.

MacLeod welcomed him back. "Is your ass too fat to fit through the window?" She dismissed her own comment with a wave when Gates asked for verification of the statement. "Never mind; just remembering a date I had a few years ago."

"Really? Who was the lucky guy?"

"Eh, gal, actually. It started with three beers, ended after three days. Actually, it ended after we sobered up but it was already arranged on our T.D.'s messages and it couldn't be worse than sitting at home, could it? It could. And she stuck me with the bill by ditching. So, your turn. What was your experimentation phase like, assuming you can remember back that far."

Gates sipped from his drink. "Nothing interesting. A few awkward dates in high school, one stupid infatuation that ended hard after nothing came of a broken condom, did some time with the Ranger Service, quit that, bounced around, got as far as using the word 'fiancee' once, but… nothing came of that, either. Years go by, and I'm looking like either your uncle or a perv in an all-night diner. How's that for experimenting?"

"Quite daring! And, just in time, the food's here to save our butts."

Before the waitress left, Carol seized the opportunity to embarrass Gates further, asking if she thought they made a cute couple. Unfazed, the waitress shook her head, "You're supposed to marry the ones old enough to have finished paying off the mortgage, Sugar. Then you bring them here to clog the last artery. Enjoy your meal."

* * *

Although he would rather be sleeping, a bushel of berries to choose from was enough to convince Fardeau to sacrifice a couple of resting hours, joining other trainee pokemon in a little first-basement-level room ostensibly intended for "general purpose" use. Within it, the pokemon took turns sharing stories of how they wound up here, this club being composed exclusively of pokemon that voluntarily joined the service, with their trainer or as a means to have a trainer. Fardeau was the wildest of the bunch, since he did not even know what it meant to be a trained pokemon such that he could want such a life. Thus, when asked of his story, he captured the genuine and concentrated interest of the group—they learning of a perspective as foreign as Fardeau's central Allylidene accent—by telling them about how there was something of a turf battle in his neck of the woods, with an unstable balance having been struck between some pokemon species, the native ursaring and encroaching sawsbuck in particular, that always seemed ready to tilt one way or the other. A threat to all, of course, were hunters who would come in and seek to claim the most powerful specimens they could, as though they sought to give one side of the dispute an advantage without regard for which as they would take sawsbuck one month and ursaring another. Fardeau spoke of the incident that changed his mind about matters, how a brother of his chose to move east, how he ate the flesh of his greatest rival but only after that rival was claimed by a later-unfortunate human, and how his ignorance of the indigestiblility of what he now understood to be a human-created form of wood called "plastic" nearly killed him; which, having survived it, was a relief as for a time he thought that the sawsbuck's body harbored a curse.

"But why sign up for the Rangers?" asked a pokemon of unfamiliar species.

Fardeau bit into another berry, something he had done so much in this first hour that one would suspect it were winter coming rather than summer burning at this time. "I watched the man take my rival. He met my rival's offspring, but did not kill it. He tested its resolve and accepted it as his own. If my enemy would ally with the human, I must have a human ally, too, or my tribe will be defeated."

A politoed snapped up a berry for himself with his tongue before noting, "The humans, and the Rangers more, don't care about pokemon territory in the forest. To them, it is all theirs. Wild pokemon live there because wild pokemon belong there until they agree to act the way humans want them to."

Fardeau considered that this may be the reason why Lacroix became angry when he used the symbols he was taught to make a message asking the ranger to help him drive back the sawsbuck and other species they aligned with, and took another berry to comfort himself. He muttered something about how he may have made a big mistake.

The frog comforted him. "You'll get used to it, working with humans. I've had a few, it's easy, just remember this: they'll throw away the best advice if you force it on them, but they'll take the worst if it's only offered."

Fardeau laid himself down and ostensibly listened to the others sharing in the circle, but most of his mind devoted itself to figuring out how best to "offer" Lacroix opportunities to help the right pokemon recover their feeding grounds.

* * *

Biting a rattata's neck and tossing it aside, Warden contented himself by eating of the recently ripened berries that the rat had found. It scurried away without presenting comment or challenge. Old Mentor taught him this technique for finding the best berries, and once again it served his protege well. The nostalgic feeling was not quite right, however, and why became clear when so did the sky and Warden looked up through a break in the canopy. Till now, he had yet to eat from a berry patch that hung all of its berries lower than his shoulders. His stomach growled and soon he had devoured them all, save the half-finished one that the rodent began. Again, he acted according to his received lesson, and cast that half into the bushes near to where he had cast the rat. Seconds later, it flashed by, quick-attacking the fruit—his speed a necessity to ensure no risk of engagement or starvation.

Warden pressed on into the woods and surveyed it. In his limited experience, he compared it to Œufweiß's mansion and that of her neighbor: A dwelling just the same, but different in its details. His sojourn continued for quite a while, and when he realized how far he'd gone, he forgot whatever it was that he had been thinking about. Turning to one side, he started walking again, hoping to recover the thought. Instead he felt a strange chill followed by a bout of vertigo. Stumbling forward, he noticed a couple lights. He heard a voice. It sounded like his own, but not one with which he had ever spoken. Faint as a whisper, urgent as a shout—

"…toward the light, the lights so many, the lights only one, the lights that guide, the lights that shine, the lights that cast the shadows…"

Lurching forward on jittery limbs, Warden propelled himself up from a road-side ditch and before a brand new sedan.

So deep. So dark. Fading, fading, and gone yet again.

* * *

Scoparin District made its fame in a few ways. The most obvious was its genesis: A student rally to protest a tax levied by Coumarin District on non-residents who used Coumarin utilities grew into what people on the city side of the district soon called "The Lawn Dwellers" because of the young hippies' fondness for loitering in grassy spaces. It was a cold civil war for three years before the president of Scoparin University found the audacity to demand succession. Like all intellectuals, he had done most of his homework and thought that he had everything in order: A full survey of the land that was to become independent and a large sum of money to begin paying for it, an eligible trainer to serve as a gym leader and a site for the facility, as well as the many other needed tidbits that could be built up from what Scoparin had on hand, such as water, sewer, and officers of the peace. Coumarin's city council disapproved of the offer, since the whole point of the tax was to do a better job of perpetually milking Scoparin for the prestigious college cash flow it was bringing through. They rejected the lump-sum offer three times, slightly sweetened each go around. After that, the Dwellers and the Porchers—as annoyed life-long Coumarin citizens were becoming known, an allusion to them yelling at the Dwellers to get off of their lawns—began coming to conflict in the dozen city blocks that lay between Scoparin's ceremonial gates and the overall mass of Coumarin. The city appealed to neighboring districts for a lease of additional police and to the national committee to quash Scoparin's motion. The committee heard the case and in its wisdom turned to its most revered, although at that time not eldest, member to offer a suggestion, as the voting was falling short of the necessary super-majority required to impose rule of the many over any one.

Iwamoto gestured for a screen to be activated and for his xatu to sample the message on his mind so the bird could repeat it to a young lady who was seated off to the side and responsible for the technical details of presentations. Soon, a number of images appeared on the display.

"A few of you might recognize this," he began, "Scoparin, before it became much of anything." Two of the council members nodded in agreement, but most seemed to question the veracity of these photographs. "This is how I remember it, mostly because that's where I discovered Harmony in nature, which I've kept with me ever since. Back then, it was dense pokemon country, and had some of the greatest variety in all of our land. Then, someone got the bright idea to build a pokemon laboratory there. Trees came down so buildings could come up. Students from Rennin University justified cutting a safe path from the north, and a demand for supplies from Hexyloxy pulled all of Coumarin's growth south-westward. Students needed dorms, more buildings. Lake Muramis offered recreation, so a net ball became free for anybody willing to fish out the occasional grumpy gyarados or annoyed milotic. It had been only ten years, but when I came back, Scoparin was gone. And now, what became of it wants to earn that name for itself." The respected gym leader stood and left the room—importantly, taking the gavel with him. The screen continued its slide show, working its way through one of Masato's personal photo albums. The older members of the committee observed it, while some of the younger ones checked their messages. All jumped in their seats when that gavel struck the hardwood table that their seating surrounded. "Scoparin is a land of pokemon. If these people wish to bear that name and soon represent it with a seat at this table, they must prove that at least one among them understands pokemon: to guide them, to care for them, and to earn their respect and their willingness to rally at their master's cause. Let the sons and daughters of that land as surveyed decide whom they will name their champion, and should that one defeat the champion that Coumarin selects, Scoparin District as defined by this motion before us shall be established."

Often chided for their promiscuity, the Dwellers typically expelled their accidental bastards into the natal ward of Coumarin's nearest hospital, well beyond the land as surveyed in Scoparin's redistricting proposal. A few years passed and the matter of independence was largely forgotten, since the detailed verdict of the council required Scoparin University to comply with the original terms that Coumarin had imposed and new students did not feel the sting of a tax that was just another line item on their invoices.

But one day while digging through the stacks, a librarian found an old relic of the research facility's newsletter. It featured a slice of life story whose headline caught her eye: "It's a boy for Nurse Grovewell!" The photograph it labeled was taken minutes after little Calvin was born, most importantly, in the building destined to become Scoparin University's original infirmary.

The university president had found his champion.

* * *

"He's with us," "He's with us," "He's with us": a mantra it became as Gates was authorized by Harrison's voice to move about Scoparin's pokemon biotechnology building. They—students, faculty, and security staff alike; alike in attitude and in the Scoparin University coat of arms that everybody wore somewhere on their outfit and everything displayed proudly, nothing so much as a pokeball excluded—looked down their noses snidely enough at MacLeod, but seemed offended by the poacher's presence. Moods lifted only when they arrived on a deep basement level, and not a morgue, to see the place where Warden had been taken to. Led to observation, they watched a video feed that presented an operation in-progress. An image of red glow, shaped Warden-like enough to be assumed as him, was suspended in large tank of gelatinous fluid. A cluster of glowing spots above him flickered and sometimes rotated behind a disc that seemed to be glass and shaped in different places like lenses and prisms. It, too, moved sometimes. Within the tank, strange metal robotic arms reached into the red form, slowly and gently except for very subtle but forceful twitches.

"What in God's name is this?" Gates asked.

A technician pushed a few sliders around on equipment that looked like survivors of a recording studio fire. Indeed, part of something featured a plastic face-plate that bolstered Gates' suspicion. "Have you ever wondered what it's like inside a pokeball?" Gates admitted to assuming that it was like being shrunken down and drugged with sedatives. The technician laughed, "You're right that it is supposed to calm them down, especially on capture so they'll be docile enough to establish a rapport with when you let them out for the first time—supposed to—but the experience of being mostly energy and almost no matter, instead of mostly matter and almost no energy, is more complicated than that. And here in our lab, we play with it."

Harrison spoke up, " 'Play' is too modest. These researchers have pioneered our study of energy-phase pokemon. With any luck, we may one day understand where new pokemon species come from and how they access their powers. Perhaps even find a way that humans can harness it. And you're now a part of a better tomorrow. By lending us your sawsbuck—"

"I signed the paper because you said you could heal him! I was under duress; the rest won't hold up in court. I know a hell of a nasty lawyer, you know."

"I do know Mister Syfax. I was finishing up my masters' when he joined Scoparin Law. As I was saying, its strange case will provide us with a wealth of information. Nowhere else have we found a living pokemon that our pokeballs can't calculate a solution for, and his ability to unwittingly select which type of the multi-type power moves he expresses when under combat pressure may provide clues to how those powers manifest."

Gates looked away from the presentation of the operation. "Is that why you guys were so quick to offer a hand?"

"Time was of the essence. We're duty-bound to save every pokemon we can, and especially—" Harrison cracked a smile and visibly accepted that he could not hide his motivation for superlative and surely expensive heroics. "You promised us a chance for further examination, and I'm sure you can imagine how the weather bugs in Climate Studies reacted when they started getting photos of a sawsbuck that invented a few new seasons."

"With all due respect, Mister Harrison, I don't give a shit. I just wanted him not to finish bleeding to death or spend weeks in a body cast mounted on a creeper. Is he going to be okay?"

The technician pressed a button. "Spathor, how's it going? Your patient's trainer's asking."

Spathor touched a trigger with his thumb, twitching one of the robotic arms. "Limb bones are about set, except for the joints that got crumbled to sawdust. Reference image data from the sawsbuck population should be enough to reconstruct them if I place everything right. Give me ten minutes to finish this part and I'll be ready for you to turn on the positioning guides."

Carol had wandered around the mysterious equipment and found a window into the room wherein Warden's operation progressed. "So, it's like he's in a ball and you guys are being the rejuvenation machine?"

The technician leaned back in his chair. "Yes and no. It's like he's being scanned by a ball, between matter and energy states. Spathor's putting the broken bones and torn flesh back where they belong, and then we'll let the computer try to do the rejuvenation thing in vivo."

Gates asked, "Can I talk to him? Can he hear me?"

"Maybe," the technician admitted, "but let's not add that variable to the equation."

Carol returned to the group and placed a hand on the technician's shoulder. "If Tony wants to talk to Warden, he can. It made him better last time."

Gates demurred, "No, I'll let them do their thing. I don't want to distract the robot controller guy. If Warden gets stuck at ninety-some per cent, then I'll give him some encouragement."

Harrison seized an opportunity to show them out. "I think we can secure a couple of spare dorm rooms. It just wouldn't do to have visitors sleeping in our lobby."

Anthony took that to mean that it just wouldn't do for Scoparin's reputation, but Carol had another concern. "One room will be fine. This guy's no threat."

Her will be done, Harrison arranged for a room in housing for visiting presenters and temporary faculty members to be unsealed and arranged posthaste. The late hour, indeed the last of its series, robbed Gates and MacLeod of their initiative. Exhausted by the excitement of the day's competitions and the terror of the night's incident, neither even bothered to discuss what should be either an awkwardness or a suspicious coordination as they managed to wordlessly share use of the bathroom to become bodily washed and dentally brushed (et cetera) without embarrassment. Their tacit endeavor concluded with both wearing mere undergarments, laying beside each other in bed, for a time motionless. A parked car's alarm howled and awoke them around two-ish. "So, this is what it's like," Carol said with a lilt in her voice. Gates groaned. "I guess if I do get married, this will be my new normal. Lying in bed, some old guy making the mattress sink down just enough to notice the tilt."

"They make mattresses that don't do that. Saw it on T.V. when the dogs wouldn't let me surf on commercials."

She reached across and grasped his arm. "I'm sorry about what I said. You know, 'no threat.' That probably sounded bad. I just meant I know you wouldn't hurt me, even though the lonely young woman in me who's a little scared of being mostly on her own wouldn't mind it if it meant she wouldn't be, anymore. And, keeps telling me to try to trick you into being somebody you aren't."

Gates' replied with an unintelligible mumble.

Slowly, Carol rolled over and leaned near his right ear. Whispering into it: "Are you dreaming about me, Tony? I hope not. Dream about her again, about the me I wish I could be."

Slowly, Carol rolled over and let her head sink into her pillow. Taking the nearest corner of the blanket, she touched it to each of her eyes after closing them.

Not another word was spoken in that room before sunrise.


	10. Casting A Pall

Eternally Vernal, Chapter 10: Casting A Pall.

* * *

"Hey, wake up, Tony."

Gates groaned as he rotated. Eyes half-opened, weighed down by dried rheum, he wished that they offered no vision at all in preference to what Carol awakened him to point out. "Throw a shoe at it and hope that it dies."

A black bird tapped at the window a few times. "I think it's a messenger," she admitted, "I'm going to let it in."

"The message is, 'You're screwed.' "

Carol asked why he sounded so certain while she turned a crank that tilted outward the window's pane. Flapping about a little, the bird slipped through and landed beside Gates, projecting one leg and clicking every few seconds until the man responded. Aside from un-burying his face in pillow puffiness, he offered only a sigh. "Onyx, you are the shittiest of misfortune cookies." From the tiny cylinder strapped to the bird's leg Gates removed a tightly rolled slip of paper and with that the murkrow was off again.

"A friend of yours?" Carol asked, shutting the window behind their morning company.

"A friend of our mutual acquaintance, Max Syfax. Esquire, to boot. I'd like to give him my boot, sometime."

Carol sat on the bed and ran her palms over its sheets, far more fine than her own, she realized. "Pod job?" He hummed in assent, letting the slip of paper fall away and letting his head return to a fluffy furrow. "I don't want to order a rock-slide against you, Tony."

"I need the money."

"I can loan you—"

Gates' head and neck sprang up for a few sentences. "No you can't. This isn't a dozen tins for my dogs or catching up on rent. I've got two busted cars to replace, and both because Warden's a damned automobile wrecking machine. I'm gonna be liable for the car that hit Warden—thank God there wasn't anybody in the passenger seat—and I never got around to replacing my own car after he did that one in."

Carol laid herself down, her head resting against and slightly upon his midsection. "You never told me that story."

"The day he came galloping in to ruin my life: he ran faster than I was driving, jumped in the back, I turned to see what happened, looked forward a second later—right into one of those thousand-year guys. Somebody ought to cut a road through them, some are so wide."

"It'll be the last pod job, though, right? Even if you need the money."

Gates lay in contemplation for a moment. "I hope so, if it works out the… ."

"Promise me," she whispered. Unacknowledged, she clambered up to lean her face over his till he nodded and whispered an affirmation. She kissed him and excused herself, needing to call into the gym and let her support staff know that she would be out of town for at least part of the day.

* * *

Scoparin hospitality is defined by contradiction. For an example, take morning meals. They offer their guests a wonderful spread, even including both the glass of milk and the glass of juice that happens only on commercials extolling the importance of assembling a "complete" breakfast. Then, for the coup de grace, they add a humanoid ipecac.

" ' "So glad you could join us," the layabout poacher said as his benevolent patron, Mr. Syfax, Esquire, approached with an air of beneficence.' That's how you're supposed to welcome your better, Gates," Max said, drawing out the third of four chairs at Anthony and Carol's breakfast table. Neither repeated the quotation in recognition of their lesson, but Maximilian continued undaunted. "Time is up. We're going to take the ralts presently. Are you in or are you down and out?"

Anthony imitated somebody with proper manners, or at least tried to, slicing through some truly exquisite bacon using knife and fork to aid him. The imitation went no farther; he still spoke with his mouth full. "There's something about this job that's been bugging me. It's been back here—" Gates tapped his occipital protuberance, "—all this time. If this were small potatoes, you would've offered Velasquez my salary and he would've bagged it for you solo, or at least tried to. Instead, you give me this line that sounds like you're only wanting to have one shiny ralts on hand; Old Man Well doesn't worry about scooping up all of the shiny pokemon he can. Now, it looks like you had to have Onyx track me down so you could meet with me in person, again. Look at this egg. What does it remind you of?" Gates gestured with his knife.

"Whatever it is, it's filled your belly with philosophy this morning. Do educate us, our great, enlightened one." Maximilian's voice reeked of invective.

"That piece of paper that you had printed up with the yellow highlighting. You wanted me to know that this gardevoir and ralts had no known social ties with pokemon in the area, I guess you figured that would make me more willing to agree to the job. And when it didn't really, you picked up the paper and pointed at it. But, I can't know for sure that you didn't make up that report for some reason. I've done plenty of jobs for you and you never talk about something like that. Usually you throw me or us some leppa berries to go with the potions and revives in case a target has backup. Now, you stroll up here and call yourself, 'benevolent patron.' O, yes, what a nice guy you are."

"In or out?"

Gates rocked fore and aft, swallowing a bite of egg, letting it land upon and force back down a laugh that wanted to emerge. "This isn't a wild pokemon that hatched a shiny offspring, got spotted, and is just really good at evading capture. You know this gardevoir, you know she had an owner, and you know that she's savvy. She won't just fire off random techniques in a panic, tire herself out, and get bagged by any old poacher. You've been biding your time and biting your tongue because you know that you need me and Vel and Hemmy and Onyx and Cyrus and Seth and Ruby and the element of surprise to round things out and have a chance of getting at that ralts."

Max drank Gates' milk. "Did you pass out on your couch during a whodunit marathon one night, letting the art of deductive reasoning worm its way into your vacuous head?"

Gates lifted his glass of juice. "Cheers, asshole."

"The target has been under passive observation for some time. That it created a shiny offspring was a matter of chance. Mister Well wants it and is willing to pay you handsomely to bring it in. In or out?"

Gates glanced at MacLeod, who offered only pleading eyes. Finishing his juice, Gates responded. "It's a shit job, but I need the money. One thing, I want your promise—like client and attorney—if we bring in both the gardevoir and the ralts, they stay together. I don't care why you've been keeping tabs on this gardevoir, and even if I did care I know better than to find out, but you know damned well that this is only going to end in that gardevoir getting killed or getting trapped. If we can trap both, we will, and you're not going to force them apart until they're ready to go their separate ways. Agreed?"

Maximilian stood up from his seat. "I can't guarantee that. However, I will promise to… suggest that they be allowed to remain in contact."

Gates said to MacLeod, "I think that's the best we're going to get out of him."

Carol did not look at Max to make eye contact, but she did ask of him before he left, "This gardevoir, does she have a name?"

To that, all he could say with certainty was, "I think so. Mister Well's old sea bird once became carried away and said something more than she intended to."

* * *

A technician from the institute informed Warden's master that the sawsbuck's operation was successful, and after a full-body massage—suggested by the patient and described in a less-candid way—he seemed to recover much sensation and mobility, although he did still complain about his body moving "backward on one side." Instead of to the basement, Gates and MacLeod were led to a large, ground-level facility. Identified as a physical-therapy laboratory, it looked like somebody took an athletics gymnasium and hired a carnival company to redesign it for a televised game show. Through the chaos of strange mechanisms with ropes, pulleys, weights, and electronic indicators, Gates found his way to a team of students shouting at and encouraging something to try harder—jump kicking against a large metal target connected to a machine that measured forces of impact, Warden's might now interested them for reasons other than research. Cheers and jeers erupted and currency changed hands as Gates neared Warden and called his name, causing the sawsbuck to have no longer any regard whatsoever for the technicians' current study.

Split almost strictly along gender lines, the male students complained that their betting pool just drained, while the female students—and Carol, although she was mostly successful in hiding it—found too adorable to ignore the sawsbuck that licked its master's face and struggled to find a way to hug him, as though his affection overwhelmed his reason and as though his forelimbs could manage more than a token effort at crossing and entwining as would be necessary. Gates secretly felt likewise and compensated for Warden's incomplete hug with an extra-strong one of his own, but he forgot not his role as a disciplinarian and mentor, then reminding Warden that wandering off on his own, crossing before traffic, and getting nearly killed were all against the rules. Leading his protege away, Gates confounded the students' complaints; "Tell it to Harrison," he ordered them.

Harrison soon appeared, with his old friend Syfax beside him. Although Harrison offered an extended stay in their suite, MacLeod intended only to return to her gym, and Gates assumed he would ride back with her. Syfax had none of the latter half of that. "No. You're riding in my limousine, north on L–C. There, you will join Velasquez and prepare to do your job."

Gates made a remark to Carol about the always-unfortunate timing of matters between them and bade her goodbye. "Remember, you promised me," she said as she walked backward, ensuring that she could see and hear his acknowledgment and blow him a kiss farewell. She felt, "But I'd rather you broke that promise than—" on the tip of her tongue, but she knew not why, nor how that sentence was supposed to end.

* * *

"Can't. His ball doesn't work anymore. Try it." Gates handed Maximilian Warden's ball. Poking a ball-point pen tip into the hole that once seated the ball's button, its impotent scanning and disappointing buzz convinced the dandy that Warden was indeed not to be recalled. "We've been fortunate to borrow the beds of pick-up trucks owned by friends. Assuming you've got an appointment with Vel, you could send him here to get us."

Maximilian shook his head. "Not here; get you wherever Onyx finds you, having fled to hide somewhere in the interim. No, I'm not letting you perform a Hunter Hague disappearing act, or whatever scheme to annoy me it is that's trying to form in your mind; we're solving this problem without letting you out of my sight."

Warden watched Maximilian as he considered the situation and found inspiration. "I can fit in there."

"You're not helping," Gates grumbled at Warden.

"Yes, I do think you can, since you did an admirable job of nearly fitting yourself into a coupe last night. Not comfortably, but I'd rather not need to ask the students in materials science to remove the roof." He asked the chauffeur to open the trunk and from it Max produced some tools. With unexpected deft and the efficiency of a montage, he cast out of the vehicle its two rear bench seats and a small refrigerator. "Buck, load up." The spectacle entertained some passers-by, but with enough squirming and disregard for the ceiling liner Warden squeezed in and soon seemed proud that his body became the men's temporary velvet-upholstered seat backs.

Riding through Coumarin, Gates did not much care to see the city pass by and sat in silence, deliberately ignoring overhearing whatever calls Maximilian took during the ride. They were nearly out of town when Maximilian addressed him, "You've brought your dogs, naturally—but this deer and that meowstic you have, now: an invasive and a Psychic-type. Should I be concerned with this change of team composition?"

"Every new day's an adventure, right? The way I'm looking at it, I'll see if Warden and Tizzy are any help at first and if they get under foot I'll ball her up and Warden I can send ahead to cut off a route or just be a distraction or a way to flush your friend out. But I plan to keep Warden with me for as long as I can." The seating shifted and failingly squirmed in hopes of showing his mentor an expression of affection. "He talks and on the job that got me that damned cat, him relaying for my dogs was a little better than guessing from their barking." Max seemed satisfied enough to return to his other at-hand matters. His penultimate statement on-loop in his mind, Gates idly stroked Warden's pelt, which delighted the latter greatly, and caused a few still-rogue parts to feel like they were properly connected again.

* * *

Regardless of the terrible music being played too loudly from a speaker overhead, Tizzy could not clench her ears tightly enough to block out the vaudeville act to which she played audience and half of which she rode upon. "Explain again, Mentor," Warden demanded with an embarrassed tone.

"We need money, Warden."

"I have money." Warden rolled his head in a broad circle and twisted as much as he could without disturbing stands of apparel, trying to straighten out the bend in his spine that being folded against the coupe caused and being folded within the limo aggravated.

"You have some money, but you cost money. When I feed you, money. When I wash you, money." Gates selected a new camouflage hat and tried it on. "And when your money is gone, then what?"

Warden sniffed at the hat and suppressed a sneeze. "I don't need money in the forest." Gates agreed, and considered what equipment Warden could bear. On Syfax's dime, his imagination ran wild. "Mentor, let's live in the forest." Gates reminded Warden of all the luxuries that would be lost: bed, television, warm water on tap, food without either a search or a battle to get it. Warden lowered his head, "I want both. How can we do both?"

Gates moved on to examine some other racks. "I didn't want to say anything to you until I was sure, but I applied for the ranger service, so if a spot opens up, we'll have a job there. I can't say if it'll be your forest or another one, or even a forest at all. We'd be taking whatever we could get. They could put us on a boat for the sea services for all I know. But it'd be salaried."

The buck struggled to envision what sea service would be. The closest he could come up with was an extension of the stuff he saw on the show before the dogs' favorite, with the humans wearing small clothing running slowly up and down the beach and throwing orange things that float at people who forgot how to swim while they were swimming. "I like the job with Carol."

"I do too, but it's not enough. Not right now, anyway." Gates continued on, standing before a display that featured something on his list: whole-head masks and wire mesh. Selecting one of each, he faced Warden. "I wonder if they make something that will fit you. I guess I could wrap your head with something, but the wire might be a problem unless I can cut it right." He called to an employee and asked him about preparing a silver wire mesh to protect his sawsbuck, and elaborated that the Psychic-type on his back was not the one he was worried about. The question rose to the department manager who suggested a few small ones, wired together. "Syfax's dime," Gates reassured himself and paid for them on the deal that the manager perform the alteration. Labor's fruit delivered a few minutes later, Gates let the manager demonstrate how to properly place it on Warden's head and affix it using its own wires. Gates examined it and estimated how it might be properly secured with either a length of bandage or a scarf.

Warden blinked and lifted his head to a slight angle. "Continue."

"Continue what?" Anthony asked.

"Tizzy, continue." The cat on Warden's back scowled at the back of Warden's head, and snubbed him. In turning, she closed her eyes; upon opening them, she saw Onyx perched near the ceiling, watching them closely.

Gates asked Warden, "I guess she was telling you something with telepathy and you stopped hearing her when I put this on you?" With Warden's agreement, Gates felt relieved.

Velasquez and Syfax were on a different level of the building, although it was an extension of the same sporting goods department. While Gates was awash in apparel and accessories, his accomplices were test driving. At Max's command, Carlos stepped through a door and into an artificial forest. Walking slowly and carefully, he pressed foliage with one hand and kept his other near his holster. "Thirty seconds," he faintly heard in his ear through a small speaker. Kneeling a little, he picked up an artificial broken stick and tossed it high. Striking a treecko's tail, Carlos drew on it and fired three practice darts. Two hit, one as it reacted to the stick's strike and another as it fled.

"You missed," Max complained through the radio.

Returning to the staging area, Velasquez placed the dart gun on the table. "This grip is shit. Can they change it? I'm used to something thicker."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Max rhetorically asked as he extended a hand to the treecko that returned the three recovered darts. "Here's a different one. If that's a better fit, I'll see if they can get something to satisfy you."

The treecko left after shouting something rude at Carlos, who ignored it and noted curiously, "Mister Max, you're acting awfully nice to me."

Taking up another dart gun, he pointed it at each of Carlos's feet and tested its action. "I'm taking care of myself. And I'm taking care of you. Listen, unbelievable as it may be, I botched something. Not a big thing, but an important thing. This gardevoir knows, but she doesn't know that it matters. She's technically wild but she domesticated herself after becoming close to somebody under my care, so to speak—like you are, so you know. He's gone away on business and left her behind. I was this close to taking care of her when she popped away. Onyx tracked her down; wherever she went to escape me, she got trapped by some nobody who made the right investments and then the right connections. It wouldn't do to move on her there so I waited and she never told him anything; I know because he's a blabbermouth, so my entire social circle knew she wanted nothing to do with him and kept to herself. Then she got away from him and became a hermit. Soon, a hermit with a shiny offspring. Gates went soft on us in a few more ways, so don't tell him this, but I would be very satisfied to know that the gardevoir is dead. Trapped I can tolerate, but that doesn't solve my problem. The ralts is money on the table, but if you have the chance, priorities: kill the gardevoir and let the ralts run away. Some lucky summer journey punk can have it for all I care. Are we clear about how your mission is going to go tonight?"

"I told you from the first time, killing pokemon's not—"

"India isn't that persuasive; you're standing here only because I want you to be. Are we clear?"

Carlos took from Maximilian the weapon he offered, "Claro." Signaling his readiness for another practice session, a treecko with two superficial wounds on his side chose a new place to hide while a timer counted down from twenty.

* * *

Magdalene sensed a bad vibe and wanted nothing to do with the home before her, but Kit insisted. "It'll be okay. I made a promise and I'm going to keep it, and it's silly leaving you out in the elements. Don't you want to sleep under a roof again?"

The mienshao scoffed and remained near the mailbox, for a moment. Crossing her arms defiantly, her claws sank into, and snagged within, her filthy and tangled fur. "May I bathe here, privately?" she asked.

Kit projected back, "If you want to, but you'd waste a free chance to benefit from Mom's skills. I told you, you'll leave here looking and feeling like a million bucks."

Having successfully convinced her traveling companion, Kit approached the door, not breaking her stride, knowing that it would open before her. A woman passing her prime and expertly defying her years welcomed in an old friend. "Kit! I knew I felt something. Why were you trying to hide from me? You know I hate surprises."

In a flash of mental imagery, Kit enlightened the lady, communicating everything she needed to know about the mienshao slowly coming up the walkway, including her sensitivity to Psychic-type thinking, having sparred against one far too many times and having wounded pathways from suffering an invasive psychic procedure.

After welcoming her guest with a wave, the woman asked Kit to make any preparations she wanted to make for her friend. "Hello, Magdalene. My name is Colette, and I want you to know that I'm not going to pry into your mind or read your future or anything like that, unless you ask. But, since you don't talk, I would like permission to listen to your mind so I can read your thoughts when you want me to." Magdalene withdrew an inch; Colette clarified, "Only when you want me to, so if you concentrate on something like it's written on imaginary paper and you read it aloud I'll get it, even though you'll just be speaking pokemon talk. But your other thoughts are yours to keep. Is that okay?"

Magdalene refused at first and left as far as the end of the drive, but after looking around and back and after a momentary loss of composure, she consented. Colette again welcomed the guest, with a measured degree of kind expression. The mienshao peeked inside and seemed to study the home's layout.

Kit interjected telepathically from the bathroom. "I ran it too hot I think, so while it cools down I'm going to the store. She likes a certain shampoo." Colette waved her right arm as a gesture, and added when Magdalene did not move, whispered, "Go on in, you can make yourself comfortable. Don't worry about it." That worked. Kit took some money, apologized for doing so, and let Colette shut the door behind her. "Kit showed me a little about you. I'll be frank because my career is based on honesty: you haven't been a great friend to her since you met."

The mienshao sat silently on the least impressive piece of furniture, as she judged it, and waited for her host to continue, which was delayed until Magdalene's nose and whiskers nervously twitched.

"Did Kit tell you anything about me?"

Testing the woman's promise, Magdalene thought, then thought to herself, and after trusting that her host was still waiting for a message intently imagined as what she wanted to say and how she both wanted to, and could only, speak it, "She said you used to train Psychic-types, mostly abras like she was."

Colette chuckled. "Abras better than she was. Kit made me reconsider the tagline on my business cards, that I could broaden the vision in any Psychic. A miserable failure we were, and then friends in failure when her owners refused to take her back since they wanted one with the right gift." Observing only another twitch as a response, she changed tacks. "Let's see if I can still do the trick." Colette picked up a framed photograph from the table beside her, held it flat on her extended palm, and raised her other hand while visibly concentrating. Lowering the first, the frame stayed in the air and seconds later drifted very slowly toward Magdalene, who eventually caught it. "That's me and her, and six floating pokeballs; back when I was in practice I was pretty good. Most Psychic-class trainers plateau at two, maybe three. That's how I knew I could be something more than a type specialist, even one leading a gym. But, since I quit training and made a career for myself, all I ever use telekinesis for is making it easier to reach for pens and for passing my own salt shakers."

The mienshao sat silently for a while, her posture sagging and breathing becoming slower but heavier.

"Magdalene, Kit showed me a little of what you've shared with her. I can't make you feel better, but I would like for you to at least feel safe. Kit's almost back and she thinks she found the shampoo you like—"

Maggie shook her head forcefully and Colette could not help but sense a notion of why.

"—because she means well for you. So, please, stop thinking of yourself as a nuisance and let this shame go down the drain with the bathwater when you're done." With a little effort and knee pain, she rose to cross the room as had her photograph. "It's one of only two rules in this house, and I'm strict about them: No pokemon who enters is allowed to leave unless it feels ready to take on the world and win. Even Kit, which is why she stayed here so long, and why she's come back."

Kit teleported from one side of the entry door to the other holding a sack and projected, "I'll check the water and get your surprise set up for you."

"Surprise? Set up?" Magdalene asked.

Colette and Kit communicated briefly. "I don't want to ruin it, but Kit got you something that you've been missing."

"Kit assumes too much. And she needs to stop stealing my memories. I think she does it when I sleep."

Colette reached out to touch Magdalene's shoulder, which twisted but did not draw away. "Are you afraid she might see the wrong one?" Colette gently shifted her hand to comfort her, whispering, "You don't need to want her to see it. You don't need to worry if she does." The lady stepped toward her kitchen and added, "Kit says the water's still hot but it's probably how you like it. When you're done, treat yourself to anything in here you like to eat, or take a snack with you to the tub if you can't wait for supper. I'll be in my study doing phone work a few times tonight. Please do not bother me for any reason if the door is shut; if Kit isn't sure, assume that whatever you might want is okay to take or use. I've fostered a hundred pokemon in my years—don't worry about causing trouble, there's nothing I haven't dealt with."

* * *

Like a rolling oxymoron, Velasquez's truck made a one vehicle procession for Syfax's limousine and turned from a paved road onto a dirt path that led to visitor parking for a public wilderness area that Linalool City's northwestern outskirts had grown near to. While Carlos parked, the limousine enduring the unloading of its passengers and then departed with a haste that suggested the car was either afraid of being exposed to nature or desperate to recover its missing parts. "This place is busy. Is that going to be a problem?" Velasquez asked of Mister Max as the latter strode near with attention focused on his communications device.

Pocketing the device, Max glanced around. "All the better. Wherever they are, your target won't be. I will have a word with the people who matter. You two put on your inbred bumpkin costumes—hey, that was fast—and look like amateurs; wow, how do you do it? Now, play your roles while we wait for the blackbirds to change shifts."

Unlacing his boots, Gates began his working-for-Syfax ritual. Reaching into the sacred plastic bag he withdrew a bundle of black, long cut socks, removed the worn-through ones he was wearing, and put them on with a wiggle of his toes.

Warden watched in awe. "Tell me, Mentor, why have soft feet when you must do so much to protect them?"

Gates tightened his boots' laces. "They're just a part of the package. I didn't get to choose any options before I got my body." Gathering his gear, Velasquez having done the same, Gates reminded Warden not to say anything about why they were here and as a group they went to the ranger station and registered as a tiny corporate retreat sort of thing. They soon trekked into the woods, largely south by southwest, guided by a map provided by their benefactor. Arriving upon the spot-marking "X," they established their campsite. Everything in order, Gates and Velasquez released their pokemon. Cyrus and Seth set about studying the area around the site to get acclimated to the environment, learning which smells and trails were endemic and safe to neglect. Ruby mostly stayed near to Carlos. She did stray once to greet Warden, but refrained as he was busy translating countless complaints for Tizzy, who had her fill of wilderness when she ran away from Œufweiß and felt betrayed that Gates' paperwork promised her she would not be pressed into Ranger service yet now she was surrounded by ten times more trees than she had ever at once seen.

All had waited just long enough to grow bored of waiting when Hemmy landed near the rocks that Velasquez had arranged in case they found a need to start a fire. Pinching a device clipped to his wing, the honchkrow indicated his arrival and Velasquez's telephone rang. Maximilian gave them some rudimentary instructions about where to go, as Hemmy had been made, the gardevoir was already on the move, and Onyx was in the air to reestablish contact. As the call terminated, Hemmy approached the strange duo of Warden and Tizzy. "I know you know I haven't met either of you before. What experience have you in tracking?"

Warden spoke so that the humans could understand, "I have tracked berries, bears, humans, and this cat. I have never been discovered while hiding and when I am quiet I am not heard. You?"

Hemmy cawed. "My actions and my motivations do not always agree. The cat?"

"Disruptive," Warden confirmed. Tizzy thrust out her tongue but had no means to argue contrariwise.

Hemmy did not care to care any more than he already had. "I wish you your due fortunes," he said as though all could equally comprehend his sounds and flew away. Warden translated it at Gates' request; although verbatim and precise, the wording made Gates suspicious of an error.

* * *

Sunny's daughter understood her duty but not why she was tasked with it or why her mother felt so strongly about its importance. Believing herself to have achieved her goal, she alerted her mother with a projection of what she saw. It was dismissed as a failure: the color was right, but the flesh of the fruit had the wrong texture. "That one is named payapa and a pokemon who eats one will resist our powers. The colbur berry will have spines." A dozen wild berry patches passed by before one suited Sunny's interests enough to be worth stopping for.

She let her daughter down with a stern warning to remain near before inspecting what she had found. A few under-ripened oran berries, hardly worth anything but worth more than nothing. She took the two largest for herself and plucked the two smaller for her daughter whom she summoned to her side. The ralts was accustomed to sleeping as soon after sunset as her mother would find a safe place to settle down, and expected that this was that place. However, Sunny sensed some things. Shadows nearby that moved in a way betraying a masked intent, and a point of light: however dim, it would once in a while flicker, suggesting that it too was poorly masking itself. Sunny wanted to indulge her daughter, but… with a straining concentration, she chose to neglect the shadows—they each, and three in particular, were too much like a smaller version of the blackbird that visited her and warned her before and again today to intrigue her—and instead she focused on the point of light. After a few minutes, it brightened like a nova.

The dogs' horns ached and the men fell down when Tizzy overestimated Warden's ability to keep her balanced over rough terrain and fell off of his back, landing hard enough to open her ears for a second. She fussed and whined while projecting a stream of unfriendly ideas at Warden, but the only ones to receive a shade of her meaning were the men, not targeted by her message but too near to her unfocused diatribe to pick up none of it. Gates quickly produced a healing spray. "Stop it! We're hunting a Psychic-type and you're projecting so loudly I can feel it in my fillings. If you're going to throw your powers around, figure out if the target has left from where Onyx last reported. It's been a while since we checked."

Tizzy rolled her eyes before closing them and concentrating. Among an analogy for a field of stars as diverse as those coming into view above them as the clear skies approached their darkest and most bespeckled, one binary system stood out. Risking an attempt to contact it, she lost the wager, as it was listening intently. Tizzy grabbed Warden's front left ankle and spoke through him, "I found her and we connected—she is running, desperately now. If you want to catch her, you must run, too."

Through the woods they dashed for two thirds of an hour, both parties becoming tired overall. Velasquez complained as Gates began falling behind, and complained more when Gates stopped. "What are you doing? Are you making a phone call?"

"Yes! I'm making a phone call—if I can find some reception. You can get led around all night if you want, I'm going to use a couple brains and figure out where we're being led." Breaking habit, he used his own telephone to dial a memorized number. The recorded greeting made him wince for some reason. After the chime, a familiar voice with a grave timbre repeated itself, "Will you turn and run?"

"I will move forward. Is it still ahead of me?"

Velasquez glanced at Warden and Tizzy. Warden's expression was as solid as marble, while Tizzy's fur was rising to stand on end.

"Will they warm over time?"

Nearer to the telephone that Gates did not hold, in a small room that had sheltered countless pokemon, a kadabra adjusted a fussy strap attached to a purse-like pouch designed to securely hold things that are sometimes difficult to secure, like decks of cards with symbols on them. "Now you do owe me one thing, Maggie. You have to let me in your head so I can learn how to use these cards, too. That way, I can use them if I need them with somebody who hates telepathy, or Dark-types. And, I don't want to find a message you've left behind for me and not know—no…" Kit sprang up on the bed and rushed forward as though she could run through the wall. Teleporting as she left the bed, she effectively did so. Re-materializing on the other side of the house, and in the only room that Colette's guests were forbidden to enter, she rushed to snatch the telephone away from her host.

"I still choose who and how many, right?" came through the receiver, a question at which Colette reaffirmed her previous reading, denying the flex that her client wanted to bend into the circumstance. "Alright. Thank you. I'm sorry about what I said about—"

Kit stripped the receiver away from Colette. "Stok! Don' to! Go, p'ease, home!" she coughed at it; for a pokemon that could not speak to humans, through sheer force of will and the natural benefits that her species' mental capacity offered she did a very good job of begging with coarse monosyllabic words.

It was a voice he had heard only in his mind, before, yet, "Kit?" Gates asked with a surprised shout, "How—what… what the fuck is this? What kind of scam are—God, that's it—" Gates cut himself off by ending the call. Ignoring Carlos's attempts to start an argument, Anthony approached Warden with a tension in his step that made the sawsbuck feel protected. First, he performed some actions on his account, authorizing on-demand transfer of his account's funds to a money card held by a pokemon, as of the next moment renamed, "Warden Gates." Then, unwrapping the improvised balaclava and silver netting from Warden's head, Gates wrapped his trainer's device in the fabric, and slipped it into a vest pocket, the netting in another pocket beside it. "Son, pay attention, I want you to remember everything I tell you. I'm giving you my T.D., you'll probably need it. Go to the ranger station where we were this afternoon, tell them that we left camp without you and didn't come back when we should've, and then leave if that's it. They'll probably want to stop you to ask more questions, don't tell them anything different and demand they feed you if they get annoying. Eventually they'll let you go; find a Linalool pokecenter with a hostel, I'm sure there's one in town, ask for a room for a few days, have them put it on my account using the T.D. and get lots of rest. If Tizzy wants to check the listings for somebody needing a meowstic, she can give herself away; it's noted on my account, have the pokecenter desk take my T.D. and do the paperwork for you. If she wants to stay with you instead, you two can work that out. If I don't find you before the center turns you out because my money's gone or—, go back to Guaiacol and have Miss Murphy let you in. And, if the Murphys or Carol ask about—never-mind that, you'll handle it okay. You're ready enough, and I'm sure they'll help you with things that need thumbs. Warden, I want you to know I'm proud of you. You've caused me more trouble than I knew was possible, made me do things I never wanted to do, and damn it, looking back, I've loved every second of it."

"I don't want to go back to the ranger station. Tizzy can have her ball and walk back alone. I want to be beside you, Mentor."

"I know you do, Warden." Gates repeated himself but in a whisper. "And I want to be the mentor you deserve. But tonight I have to do something that I don't want you learning from. Wasn't there ever anything your old mentor did that you knew he shouldn't do?"

"He let you kill him."

Gates could not help but indulge a morbid chuckle. "He knew he was making a surely fatal mistake, but he did it anyway, didn't he?"

Warden nodded, dipping his head but bringing it up again only halfway.

"I kinda wish things were different. If time jumped back a while, him and I probably could've gotten along. We've had something wonderful in common. Anyway, you're too important to me for me to go and set a bad example for you." Gates gripped Warden's antlers and pulled his head against his own, and so they stood for many seconds, Gates breaking the silence only to say faintly, "You granted my wish. I'm sorry I might not be able to grant yours."

Velasquez held his tongue until a frizzy Tizzy's reflective eyes disappeared into the deepening darkness. Then, he cut loose. "What the fuck is happening, Gates? You bring them on this hunt, the Psychic kinda helps, kinda blows it, now you send them away, you're making strange phone calls again, and all this time our target's getting away. It's probably halfway to who knows where by now, we're going to be up all night—"

"No," Gates adjusted his own silver mesh after removing his hat and donning his balaclava, and gestured for Velasquez to do likewise. "We're going dark, we're going in, and we're going to murder a gardevoir."

Velasquez showed Gates a suspicious facial expression before he hid it behind his mask. "Is that a fact?"

"It'd better be. I won't like it going the other way." Gates commanded his dogs to press the trail hard. They had a lot of ground to make up.

* * *

Having indulged her daughter's pleas, Sunny found a place that seemed defensible enough and let her ralts rest. She so immediately fell asleep, and so peacefully, that Sunny could not help but be lulled by it. Closing her eyes and relaxing, she allowed herself to begin drifting away on a raft of psychic energy, that of other creatures, too sleeping or nocturnally active. In what wanted to become a dream, a few dark spots appeared. One passed overhead and her eyes opened. A glance at the constellations above showed they had hardly moved. Feeling almost ashamed at how poorly she provided for her ralts' safety this night, Sunny picked up her daughter and started away again. Balancing two objectives, first to evade capture and second not to disturb her daughter's sleep, the first tipped the scales. Awakening the ralts with a psychic message, "It's time to run again," Sunny set her down for a moment so she could teleport alone to a high tree branch. Surveying the land, she considered first Lake Muramis. The water would pose a natural barrier if they could not cross it, but if they could it was no help and not far beyond the lake stood the city where young humans go to learn how to do things to pokemon; her daughter would surely be taken. Looking across the way that the threat came from, she saw the lights of Linalool, but to risk crossing their path and then hoping to out-run them, there had to be another option. She looked eastward to the subtle glow of Rennin, a largely residential colony. Faint memories told her that it was considered by the humans to be a quiet town, and was moderately respectful to pokemon no matter their status. Teleporting down again, she gathered her daughter and told her that they were going to go to the house where Granny used to live. The ralts was happy to hear that; although it was lonely without Granny there, it was a fine place to sleep.

Sunny struggled to ensure that none of her concerns escaped her own mind. The underbrush thickened with every furlong and the gap between her and her pursuers narrowed with every heartbeat. A faint flash reflected in a droplet of sap leaking from a tree beside her caused her to turn. Distantly, another flash she saw, a burst of flame. Fire from a Dark-type, most likely houndooms literally blazing a trail.

* * *

The dogs took turns burning brush to dust, falling back for a leppa when they felt their fires fading. Seth whined at his master before eating one, anxious and eager to do his job. He would be disappointed further, as when Gates finally gave the command to attack, he gave it to Cyrus. Rushing as quickly as his experienced body could manage, the elder houndoom tore through the bushes, burning some and forcing others, until the gardevoir changed direction toward a less-dense area. Had she thought it would be to her advantage, that thought would not last. Cyrus leapt forward and bit into her fleshy skirt, jerking her backward. Air currents fluffing it like a blanket, Cyrus dug his claws into it to hinder her and let him lunge, biting her body just beneath her dorsal sensory horn and exhaling a gout of flame to worsen the wound. Sunny shifted her ralts to her right arm and shouting with effort swung her left fist behind herself having charged it electrically. Extending her digits on contact, she shocked the dog with a thunder-wave and knocked it free of herself. Distracted by her attack, she drifted into a large tree. Something about it caused a stray thought to enter her mind and she used it for inspiration. Focusing her telekinesis, she severed a small branch from the tree and brought it down upon the houndoom. The stray thought remained.

Gates knelt at Cyrus's side and ordered Seth to stay with him. Velasquez dropped a healing spray from his own gear as he and Ruby passed by. Ordering his bitch to blaze a trail ahead, Carlos followed the fleeing gardevoir and readied his weapon. The ralts looked over her mother's shoulder and watched much of the scrub brush burn away in a narrow line. The man suddenly stopped and took a sturdy posture. Sunny sensed what her daughter saw and quickly turned about, too stopping in place. As Carlos fixed his aim, Sunny raised a palm and focused on the muzzle of the poacher's dart gun. With a subtle gesture and thankfully precise timing, Sunny imparted a little push to the dart as it flew over the mostly burned path, just enough to divert it from being aimed at her upper chest to over her shoulder, brushing her hair and lodging in nearby bark. Inches were enough this time. Sunny returned to her flight, hearing the poachers vocalize orders to their dogs. Ruby and Seth bolted; glancing back and forth, Sunny drew upon all the energy she had and looked for something, anywhere, to direct it. Distantly, perhaps a hundred meters away, she saw a hint of a roof outlined by moonlight—Granny's.

Carlos exchanged his dart gun for his telephone. "We got a problem, Mr. Max. She popped somewhere out of sight and we've lost the trail."

"Good. A long teleport is an act of desperation. Onyx will fly over the area. You keep moving and when Onyx reports, I'll adjust your trajectory."

Gates and Cyrus caught up with Velasquez, the former asking, "How did you miss that shot?"

"I didn't. She didn't try to mess with my mind, either; she knew better. Max wants us to head on and meet him at the road. He put Onyx on patrol again."

Gates wondered if the gardevoir would be better off hiding till Onyx found her, or running till the blackbird's search pattern crossed her path. Comparatively quietly they emerged from the woods along Route R–L, not far from where Syfax expected them, as they found him in Velasquez's truck, waiting. The men recalled their dogs and hopped into the back. Max tapped on the sliding rear window with his ring to bid it be opened.

"Onyx spotted her going to Rennin. I'm dropping you off at the welcome sign. Lose those weapons; if you meet up with Johnny Law, you're just trainers looking for nocturnal species as long as you've only got pokeballs and flashlights on you. Mister Well isn't going to be contributing anything more than what will cover a trespassing charge to your legal defense fund if you screw up." Gates opened the mouth of a gear bag and began changing his equipment to better fit an urban pokemon hunt.

The truck lurched violently as Max felt somewhat impatient. In its bed, Gates and Velasquez discussed what kind of search pattern to make and how to minimize contact with locals. They also switched from projectile weapons to rescue knives after stuffing a few more berries into their pockets from a small bag of equipment that Max bought in the interim as insurance against their failure.

* * *

Disappointed that they were no longer allowed to burn through bushes, Cyrus and Seth struggled the hard way through landscaped hedges as they followed a fresh trail: gardevoir layered upon with the scent of fear and dotted regularly by droplets of fresh blood; her trail may as well have glowed like a long neon tube in the night. If only it weren't so long. The latest yard they trespassed into posed a slight challenge, as though it were a fool's security system. Stakes in the backyard with plastic ribbon tied across them like trip wires required the tired dogs to pick up their paws a few times. Ruby entered the yard behind the dogs but hesitated at a ribbon, noticing that the soil had been upturned in a place. She looked around while Carlos caught up to her. Growling faintly and looking at a window of the house, Carlos risked inspecting it. Noticing inside zero pokemon and one potential charge were he caught loitering thus, Carlos paced ahead to catch up with Gates who was mantling a fence after his dogs. Ruby looked again at the window, then at her master, and followed him dutifully.

The poachers continued forward, hastening their chase when a subsequent property owner detected them and threatened them with things worse than alerting the police if they lingered. Reaching the end of the block, Cyrus and Seth quickly sniffed up and down the sidewalk. Near a drainage grate, Seth detected something. Gates and Velasquez checked it out. Aside from a chunk of the surrounding concrete being broken way and absent, there was nothing to see but some blood. Touching it and finding the blood to be still wet, Gates aimed his flashlight through the gaps and spoke to Velasquez, "I was kinda hoping she tried hiding the little one in there, but I think she just slipped her foot along that broken curb. See the blood?" There being no traffic, the dogs crossed and found Sunny's trail to resume on the other side of the street.

* * *

"I've been waiting a long time, my 'sister.' Patiently. It's time for you to give me control."

Sunny thought of every word she knew, in her own language and in that of the humans, to order the voice in her head to be silent.

"You want your daughter to be safe, don't you?" asked another gardevoir, an illusion of one to be sure, that appeared anew not far ahead of Sunny every time she blinked in backyard after backyard. "You've said your goodbye. You've given her my gift and your burden. You don't have anywhere to go now. You don't have anybody to turn to now. Except for me. You've entrusted her with me, why not yourself with my shadow?"

Sunny staggered through the badgering image and tripped on a garden hose connected to a pulsating lawn sprinkler. "Because you were never supposed to exist!" Sunny spoke softly but aloud as she strained to gather herself up. A new injury caused by falling on the chunk of concrete she had carried with her for a little while distracted her from her other pains.

"I could say the same for you, 'Sunny,' as you have deigned to be called and allowed yourself to become. I wonder who I could have been if it weren't for your weakness. I'll never know, but I know who I can make you become."

Sunny sensed around. The dogs were catching up. "I don't want to become what you would make of me."

Again she left the mirage and again it appeared before her, but now, across the next street, standing before a large undeveloped lot, one of a few, "I will make you a hero to your daughter because I will help you keep her safe at any cost. That is what you dedicated your life to, and so, my existence as well. Tonight, you have chained me to your cause, and in this moment you won't let me help you accomplish your own goal this night? No more foolish cowardice. Come to me! Surrender your pride and heed my command, and I will guarantee your satisfaction."

Sunny stood upon the sidewalk. The dogs were catching up. "Don't guarantee my satisfaction, just guarantee you'll let me go on without you."

"Go back and get the thing you tripped over, and come into this—our redoubt."

* * *

"Good. I needed more trees tonight," Carlos complained as Cyrus and Seth indicated that the trail led into a block of undeveloped lots. Ruby leaned against his leg and he scratched her scalp.

Gates scratched his chin and let the scratch work its way down his neck as he stretched it. "Ready to go back?"

"Wha—? Did you just go as loco as your deer on me?"

Gates rocked his head, a few bones clicked. "I've always been crazy. So crazy, I didn't realize that crazy was right. You know those crazy fortune tellers, they got 'em on T.V., print their birth month columns in cheap papers—" Gates paused for Velasquez's acknowledgment. "They always bugged me, so bad I kinda got hooked on them, once in a while just wanting to know what they said so I could see them proven wrong. All were wrong, except one. That one was always too right. You owe me a lot of money, Vel."

Carlos cleared his throat. "And if we stop talking, we're going to get plenty. And I'll get square with you. I wanted to, but—"

"But nothing. I just want you to understand that the only reasons I'm with you right now is because Warden's not here and it'll up the odds you'll live to get square with me, so I can get square and we can get out. If we were set, I'd let her have you; nothing personal, like you said the time we met."

Vel broke a sweat and glanced around. Aside from the lights of an automobile distantly traveling by, all things about them were motionless. "You think she's that dangerous?"

"My psychic said that somebody dies if we go in, and we know you're going in, so let's make it her." Gates crossed the street and Carlos followed him. In their conversation, the men neglected that their dogs could hear them. Ruby remained behind her master, her head and her tail hung low to the ground. This was the opposite of the other dogs, who seemed more at attention than they had ever been before. They had pressed well into the wooded lot, nearly to the center of the block, when both men's ears popped and the dogs whined, shaking their heads as though their horns ached. The whole area around them faintly glowed, especially above them where the trees' canopy looked like an aurora. Turning to face it, it became clear to them that the change in air pressure was being caused by a massive outlay of Psychic power, distorting the space above them.

As though they weren't already alerted, Carlos shouted, "Heads up!" and both he and Anthony dove to where they hoped the many tree branches above them would not fall. So many branches breaking at once that it sounded like a peel of thunder, the dogs coughed upward bursts of fire to guard themselves. All were struck by something, but none took time to check another first. Climbing from the debris, Gates ordered his dogs to their feet and moving ahead they went different directions into the bushes. Finding Carlos, he lifted the largest branch that had fallen upon him, letting him slide himself free. Ruby bit his hand, albeit gently and tugged him back, but her master resisted and scolded her for a moment. Shining his light to inspect the damage done to his own leg, he noticed that Ruby was favoring one of her own legs, one which now bent in a place that it shouldn't.

Ahead, Gates saw a few flashes from his dogs' fire and before it a silhouette of a gardevoir. "Vel, is your girl going to help us or what?"

"She's hurt, but I hope she can do something; I left my darts in the truck and I doubt a knife's worth shit if she's got that much range."

The silhouette became a little larger; the dogs were driving Sunny back toward the area that had become littered with branches atop crushed-flat scrub. Again and again, flashes of fire shepherded the gardevoir about until she emerged from the un-crushed foliage. "No ralts," Gates noticed, casting his own light at her, "she hid it somewhere. Be ready, Vel."

"Fuck ready!" Carlos shouted as he forced himself to his feet. "Let's just run. Max can kill her himself."

Gates took his eyes off of the gardevoir—and in that instant her stunned reaction—to see Carlos and Ruby stumbling away. "That's not how this goes, my—" The gardevoir appeared before them with a flash, her arms outstretched, symbolically if not necessarily physically blocking their way to the street. Then she levitated a little, spinning and tucking her bulky hands behind her body. Gates called his dogs' names and said, "I'm genuinely sorry, Gardevoir, but I have to choose who and how many. I chose to save him, you chose to save her, and now, we pay for our choices, don't we?"

The gardevoir twisted and straightened up, as though another spirit had stepped into its skin before giggling aloud and saying something short but unintelligible. Then, raising its right arm, it pointed at its right eye with one digit, brought it to its mouth, kissed it, and slowly directed it toward Gates. Her eyes glowed as she looked beyond them. Gates turned to look where she indicated and saw a chunk of concrete with a telekinetic glow around it come against his head.

Carlos shouted an expletive, in a language he'd mostly forgotten that he knew, as his partner in poaching fell to the ground. The concrete chunk rolled near the dead man's dogs, that leapt in aghast disgust as they realized what they witnessed. Seth howled an outburst and charged the gardevoir with a shout of something long and wordy that was supposed to be a poetic vow of vengance. He never finished his sentence, as G. V. activated her telekinesis again, using the sprinkler's spike to puncture Seth's throat and then, after rolling his thrashing body on its back, his heart.

"You are his," the gardevoir sputtered to the houndoom that stood defiantly beside its dead master, "you are guilty." She examined Gates' body and noticed the folding knife that he had uselessly tucked into his sock. Soon opened and in her grip, a telekinetic glow began to form around it.

Cyrus sat beside Gates' corpse. "If I am so judged, I die with my family. Will you hear my final request?"

The knife hovered, but the gardevoir nodded.

"Place my brother here, on the other side of Master. We vowed to stand beside him always, and so we shall, even into the jaws of Ammit."

With an exhausting physical effort, G. V. gripped Seth by one of his horns and positioned him as she had been asked to.

Thanking her, Cyrus concluded, "Now sate your thirst for revenge, yet knowing that its bitter aftertaste will burn your tongue for eternity."

Although the pokemon had been distracted among themselves for some time, it was not enough for Carlos and his twisted ankle to escape the whole of the clearing, much less the wooded lot. No longer energetic enough to levitate her body, the gardevoir used what power she could muster to send forth the garden hose, briefly entangling Carlos's legs with it. He fell to the ground again and Ruby turned back to put herself between him and the unsteady gardevoir.

"Are you guilty, too?" G. V. asked of Ruby.

"Yes. I am guilty, Master is guilty, they were guilty, you are guilty. All of us are guilty save two. Two of us are innocent."

Focusing her telekinesis near the mess in the middle of the arena, G. V. reacquired Gates' knife. "Two?" she asked, genuinely curious.

"The daughters. Yours, given to the home with the ribbons."

G. V.'s eyes widened and flashed very faintly. Distracted by her conversation, she reacted a heartbeat too late as Carlos flicked a dusk ball her way. Its scanning beam painted the gardevoir in demonic shades with brilliant traces. Successful in its attempt, the ball drew in the pokemon's energy, clasped shut, and fell amid splintered tree limbs. Ruby again bit at Carlos's hand to bid him to run, but he shook free. "No, Ruby. I won't owe more." Carlos opened his own knife and listened to the rustling of the dusk ball, and cued by a flash and a crackle as its shell burst open, he thrust the blade forward, plunging it into the gardevoir's re-materializing chest, right against the left side of her ventral sensory horn. Unable to muster more than a muted shriek, she shoved at Carlos's body, which was falling to the ground on its own momentum despite.

The gardevoir faintly coughed as its blood flooded half of what little space its body had for auxiliary lungs. She regarded Ruby. "You are the wisest of these dogs. Two?"

Ruby limped beside Carlos, who had managed to sit mostly upright, and leaned against him, confident that he would lift his arm and put it over her. "Mine is still within, but as you have seen for yourself, the first flame that burns within a houndour is one of loyalty."

The gardevoir concentrated and perceived more clearly than she could see in the darkness that was broken only by two dropped, red-filtered flashlights: a human and a Dark-type masking part of it—two Dark-types, perhaps, if the first one spoke the truth. Soon, a subtle shift, the faintest of ripples—but one of a naive, inherited resolve far bolder than that of its mother—yes, two Dark-types indeed. Able to muster nothing more than shallow, panting breaths, G. V. struggled to command the dog. "Prove your loyalty, swear an oath. Never tell that you know where our other daughter has gone."

Ruby barked brightly despite her pains. "I accept you as my kin."

"Go!"

G. V. perceived the departure of Carlos and Ruby until they left the woods, which was about as far as her perception could still reach. She walked aimlessly until she collided with a large tree, slipped down against its bark, and rolled over to lay against it as comfortably as she could. Placing her palms against the ground, she concentrated on leaving behind whatever trace of a message she could. Feeling the last of her power preparing for release, G. V. stepped aside. "Thank you for letting a shadow have a moment in the light. I hope the true me can offer your shadow the same favor. Your body is almost spent, Sunny. I leave you to write our final message to our daughter."

Recovering control of herself, Sunny made the most of her chance and passed away peacefully.


	11. Snowflakes On Flowers…

Eternally Vernal, Epilogue: Snowflakes on flowers, their souls preserved beneath glass, springtime forever.

* * *

Fardeau, coming to realize the concept of context, felt frustrated. In the woods, a battle to the death to protect his partner would be allowed, but because the sawsbuck with a familiar scent walked into the ranger station, he was required not only to try not to claw its belly open, but to offer it something to eat. Warden, too, recognized a familiar scent, one that had been around from time to time but was last smelled when Mentor bid his dead vehicle farewell. Being a servant to the silly man who so often challenged and then fled from Mentor seemed to Warden to be a fitting station for this ursaring. Francois was furious. He had set an appointment in Linalool for some recreation and instead he was picked by Northerncourt to sit on these pokemon until their case was resolved because the other students, all fresh inductees, needed the experience of grid searching. "Don't think I'm fooled. I know Gates and I know that other guy, with the funny words, too, because he's the same type. Poachers can't be trusted. Now you know what I warned you about. You're lucky he didn't just plug you. In fact, that's the only thing that doesn't add up in this little mystery. Your coat looks like hell with all that scarring, but your meat must be good. Maybe…" he leaned back in his chair and thought further, "…maybe he thought the other guy might plug the both of you. Or, maybe he plugged Gates anyway. I'd have to go take a chunk out of him for killing Gates before I got a chance if that's what happened."

Warden stood beside a window, looking through it. Tizzy was satisfied to rest in her ball rather than to smell the odor of a bear not yet trained in human-level hygiene. "No. I knew his dog. She told me about him. He would steal from Mentor, but he would not kill him."

Lacroix left his chair. "Little Buck, humans will do horrible things when they're scared. Things they won't normally do. Pokemon, too, especially if they've gotten to be like humans. There's a rumor going around. Will you tell me what you know? About what's really going on?"

Warden craned his neck around to face Francois, who scratched Warden beneath his chin. "Take his machine out of my pocket. Before he sent me away, he talked to somebody."

The ranger complied, and spoke with a nonplussed intonation while reading the call log. "Ocimene Psychic Network?"

"The cat said that she sensed something bad when he was talking."

Francois redialed the last number. It ran many times before being picked up. "This isn't your phone," the woman said.

"You're right. I'm Francois Lacroix, Ocimene Ranger Service. I'm investigating a missing persons case—"

"He chose to surely save the one he loved most at the cost of drawing lots for his others." The line fell dead, and when Lacroix tried it again, the automation attempted to reconnect him to the same psychic operator, but that connection was now blocked.

* * *

"I don't understand," Colette admitted as she exited her home office. "How can she be so torn up about one of my clients? She left to be on her own long before he ever called me. What's the connection? I've tried everything, even the arts that don't work, and I can't get a straight answer."

Kit had locked herself in what was once her room the night before, after breaking the rule about entering Colette's office. Aside from occasional bouts of crying, she had been completely silent for hours. Magdalene sat on the floor in front of her door, sorting a new deck of symbolic language cards into the order that she preferred; once done, she shuffled them and started over. She stopped when Colette spoke, and offered a response for her powers to glean. "I don't understand Psychics so I can't answer your question. But I do know how it feels to believe that you can save somebody from themselves, only to see them eliminate you from their life. It hurts like hell."

"Will she get better?" Colette asked, a question of the sort that betrays a suddenly insecure psychic.

Magdalene held up a card in her left paw and moved it in a slow curve around herself, from the right side to in front of her, and then to the left a little more, causing it to vanish from her sight. Between her digits, she rubbed it to feel that it was still there. "Better, but what's gone never comes back."

* * *

Carlos regained consciousness in a fine hotel bed. He reminded himself of his injured ankle when he left the bed, and with that memory came some of the others. "Ruby? Ruby!"

A large television screen activated and displayed Maximilian as viewed through his communicator's camera. "A messy bit of work all that was. You'll forgive me that I spent all of your pay, and that of your less competent friend, toward ensuring that nothing more is made of this incident than ought to be."

"Where's Ruby?"

"Be calm and, excuse me." Maximilian suspended transmission from his side for a moment. "Your dog has been taken care of."

Carlos hobbled over to the screen and perused for its camera so he could stare into it. "What did you do to Ruby?"

"I said be calm. She required an amputation, but is otherwise healthy. There was no evidence of damage otherwise, to her or her pup."

Carlos's shoulders fell limp. "Pup?"

"Really, you should be responsible enough to know whether or not your pokemon is capable and interested in duplicating itself. Now, check out time is eleven, so clean yourself up while you can. You and your services no longer interest me, so, till Simian decides to put you to use, you're on your own. And don't forget your creditors, they'll surely read between the lines."

* * *

Sending a message to Madame Wintergreen, the news read this morn, "Freja's, since, not been seen."

Released by Lacroix, Warden saw himself out. Deprived of his fight, Fardeau started to pout.

Riding atop him, Tizzy had naught to do, save to stay balanced and to enjoy the view.

Steadily he marched, never deigning to stop, as though driven on by an axe that could drop.

The meowstic wondered if forever he'd roam, till Guaiacol's sign: he had carried her home.

With their kind landlords, an arrangement was made, the flat remained theirs while the rent was kept paid.

Moraine Badges changed, the old stock was melted; New showed one edit, henceforth black stripe belted.

A mourning feline, with her claws she would rend prospective suitors not her Dark/Fire friend.

Once, nobody cared; Gates: a regular guy: seen walking his dogs, ate his bacon on rye.

Sometimes at the park, playing games in the sun; or at the gun shop, to go hunting for fun.

But now he was gone, leaving Warden behind, alone to attest the Gates-family mind.

Regarding himself the vicar of his blood, (I use the term loose, his genetics are mud)

Warden presented himself always with pride, including the marks perhaps others would hide.

Pink streaks on his sides and each knee a great lump, in games against death, twice he'd played highest trump.

"Third time is the charm," or so some folk have said; the sawsbuck cared naught: but for Gates he'd be dead.

Warden knew not why, but he felt it was true. Sending him away was the wrong thing to do,

Unless in his heart, Gates knew his time was nigh, faced it with courage, protege sent to fly.

In his battered frame, Warden carried them on, Mentor and Mentor were still with him yet gone.

First came in Autumn, Second, years later Spring; today arrived Winter, his pelt cared not a thing.

An antler for each, flowers perennial, kept—to honor them—eternally vernal.


End file.
